The Legend of Zelda: Path of Ascension
by allen.bair
Summary: As an older Link and Zelda find themselves unable to return to the realm of Hyrule's gods, a new darkness seeks to destroy Zelda and all of Hylia's heirs. Link and Zelda's adult children must find a way to help their parents, and rise to the challenge of fulfilling their own destinies in the legend. My final Zelda crossover novel. Legend of Zelda, Stargate, Myst, and Star Trek.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was getting near sundown, and the goats were being stubborn as Link and Malon were trying to drive them back towards the barn for the night. It wouldn't have been such a big deal to leave them out just a few weeks ago, but it was turning cold at night now and he didn't like them to be left out in the cold. He pulled his octorok leather, fur lined gloves a little tighter over his hands and shivered. He didn't like being left out in the cold either. It made his joints ache just enough to where it became annoying.

"I'm getting a little too old for this," he said, patting the side of the mare's neck. Malon was getting to be somewhere near twenty years old herself. "Now that I think about it, you're getting a little old for this too, aren't you girl?" The red and white mare snorted her reply. She didn't like it when he talked about her age.

He took his green cap off and ran his gloved hand through his graying dark blond hair before replacing it. He hadn't gone completely gray yet, though the goddesses only knew why. At sixty two years old, he was certainly old enough. He couldn't remember if he had ever gone completely gray before. It had been thousands of years since he had lived long enough to reach sixty two.

"One of these days, girl, we're going to have to let Daphnes or Gaepora take this over." Link told her, thinking of his grown sons as his back ached mildly. He then looked at the last of the remaining goats. "Just not today." He amended his statement, and spurred her on again. They trotted fast, flanking the recalcitrant goats on one side and then the other until they were all running in the direction the old goat rancher wanted them to go.

Of course neither Daphnes nor Gaepora had wanted the quiet ranch life of Ordonville in the first place, and had gone to join his majesty's service in the R.H.M.G. each when they reached seventeen years of age. Because of their excellent service, and their family background and connections, they each now held important positions within the Guard's hierarchy answerable to the aging king himself. Link chuckled at the irony as he always joked with them that they wound up working in the family business for their brother anyway. It was a joke they never seemed to find funny.

Their sister Malona however, now she was a farm girl through and through. He wouldn't have minded getting her out there except she had her own property and livestock to worry about up the road from her parents. He didn't want her or her own boys thinking that their granddad couldn't do a little thing like manage a few goats anymore.

After a few more passes he and his mount had sufficiently frightened the goats enough to make them all run for the safety and warmth of their barn and he pulled Malon back and trotted over to the old wooden barn door. He dismounted as softly as he could, and went over to the door, shutting it and locking it for the night. It had been years since they had been given any trouble by the wild trolls that used to wander through that part of Ordon, but old habits died hard. He took a glance at the loaded revolver rifle which sat securely in its saddle holster. Yeah, they died real hard.

He looked off to the west and watched the sun begin to touch the forested horizon beyond the pasture and fields of his property. He loved that view. There would be times that he and Zelda had come out to herd the goats back into the barn with him just so they could watch the sunset from horseback together. But it was getting a little too cold in the evenings for her too lately.

"C'mon girl. Let's put you to bed for the night too." He said, taking her reins in one hand and leading her around to the horse barn a little distance away from the goats. He put up the separate barn for the horses decades ago because he didn't like the idea of Epona, his old mare who had been one of his best friends since he had been a kid, having to share space with animals that were going to be on someone's dinner table sooner or later. She deserved more dignity than that, and so had Zelda's mount.

He led her into the warmer barn and into her own stall, taking her saddle off of her, and rubbing her down really good. "There you go girl." He said, patting her side. "What do you think, an extra blanket for the night?" He asked her. She nodded her head and pawed the ground with her front hooves.

"Yeah, I agree. I'd want one too if I was out here. Sorry I didn't make the house more horse friendly." He apologized to her with a chuckle. He then went and retrieved a blanket for her and placed it over her back, straightening it out. "There you go. Sweet dreams, Malon." He said with just a hint of sadness at a very old memory.

He left the stall and closed it up for her for the night. In the stall next to her, Zelda's white gelding, Big Man, snorted in complaint.

"Hey, don't complain to me, boy." Link responded, going over to him and patting him on the nose. "It's cold outside and you know she doesn't do well with the cold anymore. Neither of us are as young as we used to be." He then added, "I'll let her know how you feel about it, though, okay?"

He left the two horse for the night and exited the horse barn heading for the main house on the property. As he walked by, an Ordonian man in a black suit came around the barn and smiled at him, "Everything go okay on your ride tonight, sir?" He asked Link.

"Yeah, everything went fine, Hal." He told him. Hal was a good man who had been a part of his and Zelda's security detail for years. He was in his forties, just about Daphnes' age, and was so good at his job he could have been on Talon's detail but instead he got stuck out in the boonies with two old ranchers and a bunch of goats. "You warm enough tonight? The weatherman said it was going to get close to freezing."

"I'll be fine, sir. I've got my thermals on." Hal responded with another smile.

"Well, go back to your station house and grab a warmer jacket if you need it. We'll probably survive the five minutes it would take for you to run back and grab it." Link told him.

"I will if I need to." Hal conceded with a laugh.

"Do all of the other boys have their thermals on?" Link asked. It was going to get cold. He didn't want those charged with his and his wife's security getting sick or hypothermic.

"Yeah. We all saw the weather report too, sir. Don't worry about us. You and the princess have a good night." Hal responded again.

The "princess." It had been so long since she had lived that life that it caused him to pause whenever he heard her called that, but their security detachment never allowed them to forget who they both had been decades ago. "You know she hates it when you call her that." Link told him. "She hasn't worn a tiara in decades.

"My bad, sir." Hal responded as he always did.

"Just don't let her catch you saying it, or you'll be the one who catches it from her, not me." Link told him.

"I'll try and remember that, sir." Hal said.

"Have a good evening, Hal." Link finally said with a sigh, his breath becoming visible in the chilling air.

"You too, sir." Hal said, and then he moved off as Link went to the old wooden steps of the side door of the house.

He went up the short steps, opened the door and found himself in the kitchen where a mature, blond, handsome woman with hardly any wrinkles except her wonderful laugh lines was finishing up preparing their supper. He just stopped at the door and stared at her, a half grin creeping over his face as she turned to look at him with that smile he still found the prettiest sight he had ever or would ever see.

After more than four decades of marriage and three kids she still hadn't lost her slender figure or girlish poise. The expensive designer clothes were gone and replaced with denim pants and flannel shirts which she took to wearing around the house when they had no reason to leave their ranch to go into town. She rarely wore any kind of make-up. He never thought she needed it anyway. Her platinum blond hair, pulled back in a functional ponytail, was streaked with lines of silver that blended perfectly with the gold like a kind of fine jewelry piece. From the tips of her toes peaking out of their leather sandals to the points of her perfect Hylian ears, she was just as beautiful to him in that moment at sixty two years old as the day he had first laid eyes on her at seventeen, or the hundreds of times before that.

"And what are you looking at, sir?" Zelda asked him playfully.

"This young blond beauty that somehow found her way into my kitchen." Link responded.

"I'm sorry, whose kitchen is this?" She asked, feigning mock offense as she approached him and put her arms around his neck. He took his gloves off and put his own arms around her slender waist.

"Well, I did rebuild it." Link returned.

"Mmm-hm. _We_ rebuilt it." She said, emphasizing the word "we." "I did just as much work on it as you did, and you know it, mister." She said, kissing him gently.

"I'm sorry. You're right. _We_ rebuilt it." He conceded in defeat. "So I guess that makes it _our_ kitchen." He then taunted.

"Oh, it's _our_ kitchen is it?" She needled. "Well, then you won't mind making breakfast, lunch, and supper tomorrow, will you." A cunning grin spread over her face.

"Sure!" He said happily. "We can throw that octorok I shot yesterday on the barbecue!"

She pushed him away and slapped his chest playfully. "Oh, that's disgusting Link!" She told him. The large eight legged land mollusk carcass in question was still out in the north part of the property and had already begun to smell. He didn't worry about it attracting other predators as a decomposing octorok carcass put off such a stink that it actually kept other octoroks away from his herd for a good long time. They didn't like the scent of the death of one of their own. His uncle Russel had taught him that years and years ago.

"So, it's a little gamey. So what?" He continued.

"Oh, stop! That's gross, you're going to make me vomit!" She protested. "Go clean yourself up for supper, mister." She told him.

"Yes, ma'am." Link responded happily. Zelda would never let him anywhere near her stove or pots and pans and he knew it. That was fine by him. He was a lousy cook and always had been. His best dish had actually been wild octorok cooked on a spit over a campfire one time. He didn't think it was that bad, but it sent the rest of his family running into the bushes at odd hours of the night for the rest of the night. Well, octorok was kind of an acquired taste anyway. That was when the kids were still in school, and long before Daphnes, Gaepora, and Malona had kids of their own.

He took off his fur lined octorok leather jacket, hung it up on the coat rack next to the door, and went into the bathroom off the kitchen. He plugged the sink, turned on the hot water from the faucet and let it fill the basin before he ran some cold water into it. He splashed some water up into his face with his weathered hands, and rubbed it around a bit to wash off whatever dust and sweat might have accumulated there from riding. He then took a bar of soap to finish the grime from the inside of his gloves off his hands. Rinsing them off, he grabbed a towel next to the sink and dried off his hands and face and went to their dining room.

Zelda already had the old table set. It wasn't fancy, just a simple meal of chevon stew and sweet pumpkin bread she had baked earlier in the day. He liked it that way. They could have had a chef from the palace come and stay with them when they first moved out here, but Zelda didn't want that. She wanted to learn how to do it on her own. They had gone through a lot of burned meals and take out from Pumm's Diner in town that first year, but she refused to give up. Forty five years later, he'd take Zelda's cooking over old Pumm's daughter's any day.

The table itself had been brought from the palace from one of the smaller dining rooms, as had other pieces of furniture for the old house. It was an antique made of deku wood from the Kokiri forest and big enough to seat their whole family when they came for the holidays. It looked strangely empty with just the two settings.

"None of the boys outside are going to be eating with us tonight are they?" Zelda called out from the kitchen.

"No, I don't think so, Zelda." Link responded, pulling out his own seat.

"Did you ask any of them?" She asked as she brought a pitcher of juice out to the table.

"No, I'm sorry, I forgot." He said in response.

"Well, I hope they don't get hungry. I only made enough for the two of us really." She said with a tinge of disappointment.

"I'm sure they'll be fine, dear." Link responded with a smile. There was enough food on the table to feed at least four or five people. Whatever they didn't eat he knew would somehow find its way into the refrigerator at the R.F.P. station house nearby. Zelda was always trying to take care of them too.

She sat down and they began to scoop stew into the ceramic bowls. Link took some of the bread and broke off a piece, dipping it in the stew before chewing it. After swallowing it he said, "It's delicious as always, Zelda. Thank you."

She blushed and said, "Oh, it wasn't anything and you know it, old man."

"My taste buds beg to differ, dear." Link replied. She had always been a little insecure about her cooking even after she got good at it.

She smiled. "Did the goats give you much problem getting them back in tonight?" She asked as she took a bite of her own food.

"They were a little stubborn, but Malon and I got them where they needed to go." He replied. "It was a gorgeous sunset, dear. You would have loved it."

"Oh?" She asked.

"Oh, and Big Man sends his regards." Link added.

"That poor thing, I'll have to get outside tomorrow and take him out." She said. Of course, Link knew she'd said that now every evening for the past couple of weeks.

Link concentrated on his supper, eating the salty, spicy stew thoughtfully. He then asked, "Is everything okay, Zelda?"

"Of course it is." She responded quickly. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"You just haven't been yourself lately. You haven't ridden Big Man for a couple of weeks now, and that just isn't like you." Link pointed out.

"Well, it's been getting colder Link, you know that. I don't like it when it's cold." She responded defensively. "And I've been getting more tired lately, that's all."

"The cold never used to bother you before." Link responded.

"Maybe my age is finally catching up to me." Zelda responded. "After all, we're both in our sixties now. We couldn't stay young and healthy forever, could we?"

"But you were just fine before two weeks ago." Link persisted. "Have you talked to the healer lately?"

"I haven't seen Kelli since my check up last month, you know that. My next one's not for another week." Zelda protested. "I'm fine, Link. I've just been a little tired lately, that's all."

"I want you to call her tomorrow, Zelda. It won't hurt for her to make the house call a week early. Have her run one of those new hand scanner devices over you like she did a couple of months ago. Please, just do it for my peace of mind if nothing else, would you dear?" He asked, trying to maintain a charming smile.

"Oh, alright, I'll call her first thing in the morning. I just don't want her rushing all the way out here for nothing. Sometimes I wish we could just go and see the healers in town instead of having poor Kelli come all the way from Castleton." Zelda told him.

"It's for the best." Link responded. They both knew perfectly well why they couldn't just go and see the healers in town, Talon's explicit instructions for their care to Royal Family Security notwithstanding. In forty five years little had changed to R.F.S.'s standing orders where Link and Zelda were concerned, and those were from the king himself.

Zelda began using her own small pieces of bread she cut from the loaf to sop up what remained of the stew and began to chew. The look on her face told Link there was more going on behind her eyes than she was letting on.

"What else is on your mind?" He asked.

"Have you heard from your mother lately, Link?" Zelda asked.

The question took him by surprise, and he almost began to wonder if her mind was going. Link's mother had been dead since he was very young. He almost began to mention this when she added, "Farore, I mean."

Oh, _that_ mother. "No, I haven't heard from her in a long, long time." He answered. "Have you heard from Nayru?"

"No." She responded sadly.

"You know they don't usually involve themselves in mortal matters, Zelda. I hadn't really expected to hear from them again in this life." He told her.

"I hadn't either, it's just that... well... Oh, never mind." She said and then focused again more intently on her food. Link could see she was frustrated about something.

"What is it?" He asked.

"We're getting older, Link. Neither of us knows how much longer we've got in these mortal bodies. The last time I talked to my mother she said that there was no guarantee either of us would be able to ascend again." She stopped for a minute, and then continued, "That was my fault, I know. But I just... I mean we've kept out of interfering with anything that goes on outside of this property for most of our lives now. I guess I would have thought maybe they would have at least let us know whether or not we would continue after this or not."

Link hadn't actually thought about that for a long, long time. He had been happy right where they were, doing what they were doing. He hadn't been in any hurry to return to the realm of Hyrule's "gods" and all that it had meant for him in his long and considerable life.

"I guess they'll let us know when they've made up their minds. To honest, dear, I haven't thought about it for years." Link said. "I figured someone would show up when we were dying and lead us back. If nothing else, we both did it once before on our own. We can do it again. Maybe they expect us to."

She listened to what he said, but then didn't reply for some time. When she did, she said quietly, "I don't remember how to ascend on my own." She then asked, "Do you?"

Link was taken aback by the question as his mind immediately brought up everything he knew about returning to the other plane of existence he had grounded himself in for so long. His memories of being ascended were a bit fuzzy but they were there. As he thought about the process of how to get there however, he realized that his own memory of it was blank as well.

"No, I guess I don't either." He said after a few minutes. "Maybe they took those memories from us when they exiled us here as mortal."

"Doesn't that worry you?" Zelda asked. "What if this life is all we have left?"

"I don't know." He responded. Oddly enough, it was something he rarely had to contemplate before. "Maybe I should make a trip to Farore's temple and ask her."

"At your age?" Zelda asked incredulously. "You can't just go swinging from a clawshot anymore, Link."

They both laughed out loud at the image of the old man flying through the air at the end of long metal chains. It felt good to laugh, and it took the serious tension out of the air. "No, maybe not." He agreed when his own laughter had calmed down a bit. "But still. Maybe I should find some way of trying to get her to answer the question."

"It's not like they don't know what's going on with us." She pointed out.

"No, that's true. But we don't know what's going on with them." Link replied. In truth, he hadn't much worried about what was going on with them up til this point. He occasionally gave a word of thanks to one of the three goddesses when something went right, but that was about as far as his own religious devotion went since having been one of the objects of such devotion himself at one time long ago. On the rare occasion when he went into town, he still received strange, almost worshipful looks from some of the older folks in town. It was the reason he didn't like going into town much.

"Maybe they're waiting for us to make the effort to seek ascension again." Zelda speculated. "We haven't spent a lot of time working on it, have we?"

"No." He agreed. "No we haven't. We've been too busy living in this life."

Link finished his own food before Zelda, and picked up his bowl, plate, and silverware to take it to the sink in the kitchen, his mind filled with questions about their conversation as he absentmindedly washed his dishes and stuck them in the rack to dry.

It was a good life they had been living. It was a peaceful life that didn't involve more monsters than the occasional wild troll or octorok that had a taste for goat or cucco. But it was a life that would eventually end, and he had gotten so absorbed in it that he had forgotten to consider that fact.

He put his wet hands on the counter and stared out the kitchen window to the trees and pasture beyond. "So, mother, what do I do about it this time?" He asked quietly, but out loud. "How do I fight this enemy of our souls' oblivion?" I must be getting old if I'm waxing poetic, he thought.

He turned away from the window and went to join Zelda again back in the dining room. Outside, just beyond the house and unnoticed by Link, a gentle warm breeze blew through the trees that were turning from green to gold and red in the onset of autumn. If someone had been paying attention, they might have seen the soft, greenish glow of a woman's outline moving through the woods, watching the house expectantly.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The small tablet-like scanning device passed over Zelda as she stood with her arms outstretched in their living room. It made passes two or three times as the healer, Kelli, studied its small screen. Her expression became more serious with each pass.

"You sure that little mobile phone thing can pick up everything it needs to? It looks pretty small." Link asked her. He couldn't see how any device, no matter how modern and advanced, could do what the healers claimed it could do.

The blond haired Hylian physician gave a smirk as she said, "I'm pretty sure, Link. It's never been wrong before." The smirk on her face turned serious again as it looked like she was contemplating the implications of that fact. It wasn't the first time he had made that comment, and it probably wouldn't be the last.

Zelda had called the royal physician soon after breakfast. Three hours later, before noon, Kelli had passed through their security agents and was knocking at the front door. She was a younger woman, but had been Zelda's and Link's personal healer for almost ten years now, having been the best and the brightest graduate of Castleton's medical school. Talon immediately had her assigned to their personal care after she had a distinguished internship year at the main hospital in the capital. He always wanted the best and the brightest looking after his "aunt" and "father."

Kelli scrutinized the little screen fiercely, tapping at it, swiping the screen with her finger, and tapping at it some more. She then pulled it away from the older woman in the red plaid flannel shirt still standing with her arms outstretched like a cross. "I'm done, Zelda. You can put your arms down now."

"Thank you, dear." Zelda responded sweetly as her arms came down to her sides. "So, am I fit as a fiddle?" She asked hopefully.

Kelli didn't answer her for several minutes as she continued to concentrate on her screen. It began to make Link nervous. "Kelli, is my wife okay?"

"Actually, with these readings, I'd like to take you back to the main hospital in Castleton to run some more tests." She said to Zelda, trying to keep her voice neutral but kind. "To be honest, some of what the scanner's telling me is worrying me a little, and I want to get you under a more powerful diagnostic scanner before I can tell you.

"Why? What's wrong?" Link asked her.

Kelli took a breath, looked at Link and said, "In layman's terms, it looks like her body's fighting an infection but I can't find it. Her body temperature's fluctuating as well. There's a few other abnormalities that are a little complicated for me to explain, but I need the full scanning device at the hospital to really investigate them." She then asked Zelda, "Have you taken any water of life recently?"

"No, I haven't needed any in a long time." The old woman responded. "We haven't lived that kind of life for years."

"I didn't bring any with me, but I want to get you started on a red water therapy as soon as possible just in case." Kelli told her.

Kelli now had Link's full attention. "Red water, Kelli? I didn't think you guys used the old potion much any more except for emergency cases."

"A lot of us don't. But in a case where I don't know exactly what's causing abnormal readings like these, it's going to be better than doing nothing for the moment. No one denies that the stuff works miracles." Kelli told him. "Especially when we don't know what the cause of the problem might be. Does your R.F.P. security detail keep any in their station house?"

Link became more concerned and it showed all over his face as he looked at his wife. "I don't know. I haven't asked." He told her. He then went to the front door and opened it to call out to the black suited man down at the bottom of his porch, "Hey, uh... Delo!"

The black suited Hylian man, turned around to face the older man, "Yes, sir?"

"You guys have any red water over in your station house? You know, for emergencies or something?" Link asked.

"Yeah, we keep a couple of bottles in the emergency kit." Delo answered, then concern crossed his face. "Why? What's wrong?"

"The healer wanted some for Zelda." Link responded, trying to keep a calm voice.

That was all Delo needed to hear. He pulled out a sleek black portable phone and keyed in a short number, putting the phone to his ear. He said something that included the words "red water of life for Zelda" into the device, and then put it away. "It's on its way, sir." He told Link.

Within minutes, another black suited man, a younger fellow, came running across the dirt paths from the station house at full speed, a clear, sealed bottle full of a shimmering red liquid held tightly in his hand. "Where is she?" He asked excitedly, his face full of concern. "I've brought it! Where's the princess? What happened? Am I too late?"

As concerned as Link was for his wife, he deeply appreciated the young man's concern for her as well. "Zelda's in the house, son." Link told him as he stepped out of the door and went down the steps to meet him. "The healer just wanted her to start taking it as soon as she could. I don't fully know why. I guess she's going to have us go to the hospital in Castleton for some more tests."

"Understood, sir." The R.F.P. officer told him, a little bit of relief crossing over his features. "I'll get the car ready." He said, then moving off quickly towards the station house's garage where a black road car with tinted windows was parked and kept ready on a regular basis for the unexpected trip into town or elsewhere.

"You do that." Link said under his breath as the man moved off. He took the bottle with him back into the house and into the living room, handing it to the healer who unscrewed the cap, breaking the seal on it. "Here," she said, handing the bottle to Zelda, "I want you to sip this until it's gone."

"Ugh," Zelda replied making a face, "do I have to? Red water tastes horrible."

"If the healer says to do it, dear..." Link told her gently but firmly.

"Fine." She said, and put the bottle to her lips, taking a good swig of it.

"I said sip it!" Kelli told her, reaching for the bottle in her hand to pull it back a little bit. "I want to spread out its effects until we can get you on an interveinous drip in Castleton."

"Oh. Well, fine." Zelda said with disgust.

"Please, your highness..." Kelli implored her.

"Don't call me that." Zelda told her sharply, her sweet voice suddenly taking on an irritated tone. "Do I look like a spoiled princess anymore?" She said, gesturing up and down to herself.

"I'm sorry. I really am, Zelda. I really need for you to sip the red water to get it into your system, but make it last until we get to Castleton, okay?" Kelli told her more gently. "It's a three hour trip as it is."

"Kelli, what aren't you telling us?" Link asked her. "Why the red water? Why does she need to be on it now? This isn't our first go around, you know. We do know why anyone would need to be on a red water drip." He wanted some better answers than the healer was giving them.

Kelli looked him in the eye, and then she looked into Zelda's eyes. There was a depth of history and understanding there that the healer hadn't seen in any other people. "I'm sorry. Sometimes I forget who and what you are, or have been." She said. "I thought you preferred it that way."

"Don't be sorry, just don't mistake us for your run of the mill doddering old folks." Link told her.

Kelli smiled at that. "Alright. I'm worried it could be some aggressive form of a white blood cell cancer, but there's something different about it that I can't quite understand. That's why I need to put her under the big scanner at the hospital. In a case like this, red water will kill the cancerous cells but it won't keep more from coming back if she doesn't stay on it. If that's what it is, then I want her on the red water drip as soon as she can get it until I figure out what's causing it."

"How aggressive?" Link asked.

"From what I saw on the scanner, if we don't get her on the drip by tonight, she may not see tomorrow." The healer told them both.

"And after that, then what?" Zelda asked calmly.

"Then we run more tests to find out what's causing it." Kelli told her.

"And if you can't find the cause of it?" She pressed.

"Red water can only do so much. It differs from person to person, but after so long, some kinds of cancers mutate and adapt to it so that it no longer has the same effectiveness." Kelli said. "I'm sorry, but we really don't have the time for a longer explanation."

"Delo's got the car ready, dear." Link addressed Zelda. "You going to follow us, or are we going to follow you?" He asked the healer.

"Follow me." She responded as she packed up her equipment quickly. "And I mean it, Zelda. Sip the red water. Please." She told the older woman.

Zelda just stared at the both of them. Within a few minutes it seemed everything had turned upside down in her life. "We'll have to call Malona and the boys, and let them know we'll be gone for a few days." She said.

"I'll call Malona now." Link said, his voice pensive and distracted, going to the telephone in the kitchen. "Someone's going to need to care for the livestock and the horses while we're gone. I'll let the boys know we're in Castleton when we get there."

"I don't think you understand what I'm..." Kelli began to try and explain it again to Zelda when Link held up his hand and made a gesture for her to stop speaking. He shook his head and she understood.

He went to the phone and picked it up, dialing the number for his daughter's property. He let it ring several times before he hung up. "Malona's not answering." He said.

"You can call her from the road, I'm sure." Kelli said. "We really need to go right now."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll do that." Link said as he went to get his and Zelda's coats.

Link sat by his wife's bed in a private room in a secure wing guarded by Royal Family Protection agents throughout the floor of the hospital in which it was. It was midafternoon, and Kelli, being the royal family's personal physician, had seen to it that they weren't bothered with any of the normal paperwork and questions that beset most patients being checked in for care as they were taken straight to the king's personal hospital quarters.

Zelda was dressed in a white hospital gown shortly after their arrival, and a shimmering red I.V. drip was inserted quickly into her slender, aging arm. Link held her hand gently but firmly. He hadn't let it go since they stuck the needle into her to start the drip. That had been an hour beforehand.

Their privacy had been assured by the hospital staff, and the R.F.P. agents, and Link was glad for that. He had finally been able to get a hold of his daughter just after they left their ranch and asked her to look after the animals for a few days. He didn't tell her everything, just that her mother had to have some tests done in the hospital in Castleton. It wasn't a lie, even though it wasn't the whole truth either. He didn't want his daughter to worry, or at least to not worry as much as he was.

"Well, at least I don't have to drink the stuff any more. That was revolting." Zelda told him, looking at the clear plastic bag that held the red fluid.

"I'll bet." Link returned. The goddesses knew how many times he had needed to drink the stuff, even in this life. You never really got used to the taste though. "I wouldn't want to sip it either."

"I wonder how long she's going to keep me here." Zelda said.

"I don't know." Link responded. "But don't get your hopes up."

"I suppose I could pull rank and just order them to let me go home if it takes too long." She told him in an ornery voice.

"Maybe," he smirked. "But I don't think that's really an option this time, do you?"

"No. I guess not." She conceded. "I gave that title up a long time ago. Maybe that was a mistake."

Link smiled at her in response.

"What do we do if they can't find what's causing this?" She asked him, her tone of voice changing. "Do we just wait and see if Nayru or Farore comes to get me when the red water doesn't work any more?" She squeezed his hand and looked into his eyes. "I'm scared, Link. I'm scared and I don't know what's going to happen this time. We've lived so many lifetimes that it never really occurred to me until now this one might be our last. If Nayru doesn't help us, I don't what will happen to me or you."

"That's not going to happen, Zelda." He said, trying to make his voice as soothing as possible. "I won't let it happen." He held her slender hand now in both of his own and drew it up to his lips and kissed it. "I promise."

"Some enemies you can't fight on your own, hero." She told him, taking back her hand and lovingly stroked his care lined, weathered face with her fingers. She noticed he had forgotten to shave that morning, and the whiskers were beginning to show. "You're fuzzy today, mister."

"I had more important things on my mind today, dear." He responded.

Then there was a knock at the door. "Come in." Link called out. The door opened and a man who looked like a slightly older version of the old rancher with silvered orange hair tied back in a neat braid, and an impeccable, expensive red business suit and gray tie against a white shirt entered the room. "Your majesty." Link addressed the newcomer, though he didn't move from his seat to stand or bow, or anything else that most people would do when uttering that form of address..

"Father." The king responded, approaching the bed. Link and Talon had buried their differences long before, and Link knew how important it still was for the man to be accepted by him. He finally stood and embraced him, man to man.

"My Lady." The king addressed the older woman lying in the hospital bed as he came out of the embrace.

"How many times..?" Zelda began to reproach him.

"To me, no matter how much you protest, you will always be 'my Lady,' Aunt Zelda." Talon told her... again with a lopsided smile that reminded her so much of his father. "Healer Kelli informed me of her preliminary findings. I came as soon as I heard. You will have the best treatment available, I promise you, my Lady. Anything you need, I am still ever at your service."

"I know, Talon." She told him wearily. "And I do appreciate it."

"Have Daphnes and Gaepora been told where their mother is yet?" Link asked.

"Not yet. I wanted to have a chance to speak with the both of you privately before we brought my younger brothers in, if that's permissible." Talon told him.

Link nodded in response. "You have my attention." He said.

"And mine, Talon." Zelda added.

"Kelli told me how serious this could be. Have either of you heard anything from Nayru or Farore?" He asked with a certain gravity in his voice.

"My mother hasn't spoken directly to me in decades." Zelda responded.

"Neither has your grandmother." Link added. "We were discussing it last night, in point of fact." He took a deep breath and sighed. "The truth is son, neither of us have been even able to remember how to ascend on our own."

"How is that possible that you could forget?" Talon asked.

"I don't know. Maybe the others took those memories from us when they rendered us completely mortal. Maybe they expected us to find it again on our own. Honestly, neither of us were really trying that hard over the last forty five years. Not as hard as we should have been. We were caught unprepared for this." Link said.

"How could you, of all people, be unprepared for this?" Talon asked, incredulously. "With as many times as you've gone through it."

"Life happened." Zelda responded to him. "Life happened, and Hyrule went on largely without us, Talon."

Talon spied a second chair across from where Link sat next to Zelda's bed. The king grabbed it and pulled it over next to Zelda's bed, opposite his younger father, and sat down contemplating what he had just heard. "I can help you through the meditations. You never took away my abilities as a Sage, just the responsibilities." He said thinking out loud. He then passed his right hand over Zelda's forehead and closed his eyes, concentrating as though he was looking for something. After about a minute, he frowned. "You're going to need more help than just meditation practice." He finally pronounced, withdrawing his hand. "Whatever the others did to you, my Lady, they blocked your ability to ascend on your own. There's nothing I can do about it, I'm sorry."

"Don't be." She said. "It was my choice to interfere in the way I did, exposing who I was in the way I did. I reaped the consequences of my own actions."

"Who among the others is going to help us if they're the ones who blocked us in the first place?" Link asked, his anger beginning to build.

"I don't know." Talon responded, putting his head in his hands, and rubbing his face in frustration and growing fear for the elderly woman lying in the bed. "Maybe they're just waiting for the final moment when you take your last breath to decide."

Link let go of his wife's hand and stood up, going to the curtained window of the room to try and clear his mind. He closed his eyes, but all he could see in his mind was the image of his wife as she lay in the bed. He tried to concentrate on the image of his mother, Farore, hoping that maybe she would respond to him, but he couldn't.

"It may not be what Kelli fears it is. You could be out of here tomorrow." Talon told Zelda behind where Link stood.

Link spoke up, the anger giving his voice a certain edge, "But we will still face this question again, no matter what. No mortal can run from death forever. We must all face it sooner or later."

"Truth." Talon responded.

Link tried to think again. In order for his wife to truly escape this, they needed another ascended being, one who would be willing to help them. But if their own mothers wouldn't respond to them now, who else in their world would?

A name came to his mind. He was a man Link had only occasionally thought about since the last time they had met. But he would be nearly two hundred and eighty years in the past, and mortal himself. He was also in a different reality, one that could be reached only with some difficulty. But it was within the scope of possibility, if not probability.

"What about Daniel Jackson?" Link said, turning to face the other two. "He was a good man. He might help us."

Talon and Zelda both looked at him with some surprise. "You can't be serious, Link." Zelda told him. "He would be almost three hundred years in the past."

"And he was mortal, I know, dear." Link finished for her. "But he told me he was ascended himself at one time. Maybe he could have found a way to rejoin the ascended in his own reality when his body finally gave out."

Talon was silent and thinking, his own mind, advanced by the process of having been transformed into a Sage, running through the possibilities and trying to extend itself through time and space as much as it could to find some answer. He still retained the ability as a Sage of Time to see into the past, and now he focused that ability on the man from Earth he had known and respected. He delved back through the history and events of Hyrule connected by the single thread of the man's presence there, and found himself in a shop in old Castle Town hundreds of years before where the man was having a unique conversation with a shopkeeper woman who was not a shopkeeper. He watched the scene in his mind and listened intently to the conversation. Finally he heard all he needed to hear and returned himself to the present hospital room.

"He did." Talon pronounced, looking up at Zelda and then Link with a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

"What do you mean?" Link asked.

"Nayru restored that ability to him as a reward for his help against the trouble..." He paused, "I caused." He finally finished with some effort. It was still a painful memory for him. "He had that ability to return to the higher plane."

"So he should still exist in Earth's present, right?" Link asked.

"Link, what are you thinking?" Zelda asked, beginning to worry more about her husband than her own condition.

"I won't lose you, Zelda. I can't. Not after this long. I won't let you go into oblivion." Link told her.

"Link, you old fool. You're just as old as I am, remember? You can't just go strap a sword and shield to your back and start charging headlong into dungeons and danger again." She admonished him as only a wife could. Then she looked into his eyes, and read the intent which was plain as the rising sun in a cloudless sky. "Link, I don't want to lose you either." She said, real fear, not for herself but for him, beginning to take hold of her. "You're just as mortal as I am now."

"I know that. I do." He said. "But if I do nothing, we may both be lost forever." He then took a step forward and held her hand again, smiled and said, "besides, this is why I was born, remember? To save the princess."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Link stood in front of the doorway to the Temple of Time holding an old wooden flute in his hand that had been carved for him decades before by his foster brother, Colin. "I should have phoned you too Colin." He said to the flute. He hoped Malona let him know what was happening since he and his wife lived in the old house Russel left them up the road from Link's property, and not far from his daughter's family's property.

It was late at night by the time he had finally arrived at the temple itself. The king had ordered a single R.H.M.G. vehicle to take him down there, and he had been preoccupied with his thoughts on the drive back south towards the Sacred Grove. He had stayed long enough at the hospital to get the results of Zelda's more thorough testing. That was why he stood in front of the temple doorway now, in the middle of the night.

"It's some kind of white blood cell cancer," Healer Kelli had confirmed. "But I've never seen anything like it before, and neither have any of my colleagues." She had told them. Then things went somewhat sideways from there when she told them, "There's a trace of some kind of magic in the cancerous cells. The red water's keeping it at bay like I suspected, but it's only keeping things under control for the moment. The magic seems to be nourishing and driving the cancer to reproduce faster than it should be." Then came the icing on the cake, "I estimate that in three weeks, it will overwhelm the red water treatment, and then there won't be anything we can do for it. I'm sorry, but magic isn't my specialty. I've called in the best magical minds in Castleton to study it to see if there's any way we can remove it without doing more damage. We'll be working around the clock, I promise you."

So will I, lady. Link had thought to himself. So will I.

The doorway itself hadn't changed in the millennia it had stood where it was. It was essentially the stone outline of what had been a set of double doors which led into a now crumbled temple, at least in the present. Had anyone attempted to step through it without knowing the key, that's all they would find; the very apparent ruins of the temple in question open to the sky, the wind, and the weather.

He put the flute to his lips and blew out a series of six notes in a pattern, the melody resembling a child's lullaby. Symbols lit up around the stone door frame and a blue field of energy appeared across the doorway like a shimmering pool of water.

Link pocketed the flute in his brown denim work pants and stepped through the portal. Inside, the scene was very different from what the ruins would lead one to believe. The temple stood exactly as it had the day it had been completed and the enchantment placed over it, sealing it away forever from the ravages of the passage of time. This was Hylia's temple, Zelda's temple, and he hadn't set foot in it for more than a lifetime, but it hadn't changed one detail since the last time he had been here.

It was still all white marble, with black marble and gold trim. The interior of the temple glowed with a soft golden light, though Link could never discern where the light was coming from. His brown leather work and riding boots tapped a bit against the marble as he walked down the steps and across the floor. Directly opposite the entry steps across the great hall lay the steps to the pedestal where a very old friend with a blue hilt and sharp edges remained embedded, slumbering peacefully.

The Sage should already know I'm here. Link thought to himself as he walked across the hall towards the sword in the pedestal. He walked up the steps to where the sword remained and looked down at it, hands in his leather coat pockets, lost in his own memories. "We've been through a lot together, haven't we, Fi?" He spoke to the sword. "Would you be willing to join me one more time?"He asked, taking his left hand out of its pocket and reaching down for the hilt.

"The true question," came a voice in reply from down at the floor of the hall, "is whether or not the Master Sword is the weapon you need to bring against the true enemy you now face."

Link looked up from the hilt of the sword, and withdrew his hand only slightly, to see a balding, middle aged Hylian man in red robes looking up at him with kind, but stern eyes. "And what do you know of my enemy, Mr. Impaz?" He asked.

"Only that it's not one you've faced before, and it isn't necessarily the one you think." The Sage responded. "His majesty has informed me of the circumstances, and your plan, and we are both deeply concerned for our Lady, as well as for you."

Link looked down at the sword again. "I've never gone on a quest without her eventually accompanying me." He said, gesturing to the blue hilt.

"But this is like no other quest you've faced, Hero." Mr. Impaz responded patiently. "The monsters you seek to slay cannot be defeated with the edge of a blade or the bash of a shield."

"Then what weapon do I need to slay them?" Link asked, though he took his point.

"What is your true enemy here?" Mr. Impaz asked. "Only when you can answer that question honestly will you be able to answer your own."

"My wife is sick. She's going to die if I don't do something." He said in response.

"Everyone dies, Hero. Even you and my Lady." Mr. Impaz responded.

"Everyone dies, but I'm not talking about her life. I'm talking about her soul. If I don't do something, her soul will be lost forever." Link told him, frustrated.

"Ultimately, we must each walk our own path, Hero. This is a journey my Lady must choose to make for herself. You cannot walk it for her." The Sage replied evenly and calmly. "You can only walk your own path."

"How can we walk any path when our road has been blocked?" Link questioned. "It isn't the path which is the problem."

"Do you believe that your divine mother will not come to your aide? Do you believe my Lady's divine mother will not do the same?" Mr. Impaz challenged him.

"I don't know. They haven't talked to us in decades." Link said, his frustration rising again, slowly giving way to anger. "It's like they've abandoned us."

"And have you tried to talk to them in all that time?" Mr. Impaz asked.

"Well, I..." Had he? Link was brought up short by that question. "I've said a few things on occasion." He finally said, remembering those few times when he said "thank you" whenever something went right for them. But that wasn't the point, "I need to find the man who can help me. Will you help me or not?" He finally said.

"You can be certain, great hero, that I will do everything within my power to help you find the man who can help my Lady and yourself in the time you and she have been given. But you can be equally certain that you will not need Fi's assistance to do so." Mr. Impaz told him. "In point of fact, it would be counter-productive for her to join you on your quest this time." He said reassuringly.

Link withdrew his hand and put it back in his pocket. He believed him. "Alright." He said in reply. "What do I need to do?"

"If you are ready, come with me to the library. Your quest will begin there, Hero." Mr. Impaz said, gesturing for the old man to come down from the dais and join him.

Link looked at the Master Sword one last time. It felt so strange just leaving her there in the pedestal. The truth was, he hadn't ever considered not taking Fi with him, even if he didn't ever used the sword in a fight. The Master Sword had been an integral part of who he was every time he had gone on a quest.

"Let her go, Hero." Mr. Impaz called out gently.

"Let her go." He said to himself. "I haven't used this sword or even talked to Fi for forty five years. Yeah, I guess I can do this without her this time." He finally turned around and came back down the steps. "Okay. Lead on, Sage." He said. And Mr. Impaz nodded and turned towards the passage to the right of the dais, moving with sure steps across the white marble floors. Link followed behind him as quiet as his guide.

The Sage led him along a path he had been on a before with another Sage and in another time, though not alone. The faces of his companions from that time and a time more recent flashed through his memory. He knew they were long dead. They would have technically been long dead the last time he had seen them, but that was the confusing reality of the temple's Door of Time. "I suppose I should let them go too. This is my burden to bear." He said to himself under his breath. "Except one."

The two men walked through the ascending hallways of the temple, and up several flights of stairs until they finally reached the familiar doors of the book lined room. Mr. Impaz opened those doors and entered with Link trailing behind.

The balding man went to a particular book case and removed two books from the shelves. He brought them over and handed the smaller one to Link, saying, "I trust you have been here before, and I have no need to explain what this is, or what it does?" Mr. Impaz said"

Link had never actually seen or used these particular leather bound books before, but he knew exactly what they were. "Yes." He answered. "That one will take me to Terra," Link said, pointing at the one the Sage was holding. He then held the other up in his hand and said, "This one will get me back here." He then stuck the smaller book into a pocket on the inside of his coat.

"Exactly. Don't lose them." Mr. Impaz told him. "I don't know what changes have happened on Earth in the two hundred and eighty years since you have been there. I don't even know if there is a functioning portal there now as there was long ago. Don't count on it. Change is a constant there as it is here, Hero. We either adapt to the changes of time, or we get swept away with them."

"I understand." Link told him.

"And this won't be like using the Doorway. Time will flow normally for you on both sides of the books. Find the person you must quickly. My Lady's time, even with the red water, is not infinite. And, if I may be so bold, your place is by her side when that time comes, no matter what the outcome of your quest." The Sage admonished him. "You may use the linking book to return here to this temple at any time and in any place. You need not return to your point of origin there."

Link nodded, chastened inside. "I have a pretty good idea where I'll appear on the other side. I think I can find my way up to the surface if I need to. Daniel Jackson, if he's ascended, should know I'm there from the first moment I set foot in their world. Hopefully, this won't take long at all."

"I sincerely hope you're right, Link." Mr. Impaz told him. "For both your sakes." The shorter, portly man opened the book he still held to its back page where a moving window showed what looked like a video of a library, not too different from the one in which he was standing except for the dust and the ravages which the passage of time brought; something the books in this library never had to experience because of the temple's unique properties.

"May the goddesses go with you." The Sage told him.

Link took his left hand out of the coat pocket it had been buried in and placed it without hesitation on the moving picture panel. In an instant, his masculine, Hylian form was transformed into a shimmering field of golden light which was drawn into the book, and he was gone.

Once the last of Link's energy had left, not needing it any more, Mr. Impaz restored the book to its rightful place on the shelf in the library, and turned to leave the room. As he was about to exit, the voice of a strong woman spoke from behind him. "So, he went after all."

"Yes, your excellency." Mr. Impaz said, without turning around. "As we believed he would. He must search these things out for himself if he is to recover the only man who can help."

"Let us just hope that he discovers who that truly is before it is too late." Said the voice.

"Excellency, if I may be so bold, why not just heal our Lady, and restore the ability to ascend to the both of them yourself?" Mr. Impaz questioned.

"It is not the place of either of us to question the will of the three goddesses." She said. "And he is not the same man he was when he first shed his mortal form, nor she the same woman. The existences they have both led have seen to that. Even if I were to restore the physical ability myself now, there is no guarantee either would yet follow through with their own part to play. There is no one more than I who wants to see the two of them restored to their rightful place. But ultimately, that is their decision, not mine. They both must make it for themselves before their time runs out."

"And while the hero seeks to find his path, who will help the princess do the same?" He asked again.

"Your predecessor is already working with her, and I will not be far from the service of my mistress. Of the two, I believe she will come to the needed wisdom first. It is not she that I am truly concerned for. He has suffered much, and continues to burden himself and so prolong his own suffering. None of us can foresee if he will find the way back, or be lost upon it." The woman's voice turned solemn as the grave. "For now, we watch and wait."

Link materialized in a dimly lit, cavernous library next to a pedestal with a great, leatherbound book laying open on it. The book was ancient and worn, but still intact. "Kind of like me." Link mused. It had been centuries, but he recognized where he was all the same. The columns with the odd shaped number symbols, and the rows and rows of bookshelves left him no doubt.

He waited a few minutes, standing next to the ancient book and its pedestal. Finally, he called out in his own language, "You should know I'm here by now, Daniel Jackson, if you're there. Zelda and I could really use your help right now."

The only response he received was the silence of the ancient library. "Right. I should have known it wouldn't be that easy. You may know I'm here, but you have to actually be here yourself in order to talk to me, and it's a big galaxy. I learned that the last time I was here. The real question is what planet are you on? Well, if you can hear me, I'm going to try and find you. If you could reach me soon I'd appreciate it. I don't have the time to search every planet in this reality, and neither does Zelda."

He had been in the state where he believed Daniel was now. He knew that the second he stepped into this reality his whole life would be an open book to his former acquaintance. Daniel would not only know that he was here, but also why he had come and what the stakes were. The Daniel he had known wouldn't sit on the sidelines and just watch. He hoped he was still that same man.

Ascension to the higher planes of existence brought a kind of near omnipotence, and near omniscience, but not omnipresence. The energy of one's being was still confined within a certain space and time.

He began walking forward towards the entry to the stairs which would take him up and into the main section of the ancient city he had emerged in once upon a time as a ten year old boy. He passed row upon row of ancient stone and metal shelving. The walls and ceiling of the great library had been supported by a hard black stone that seemed to line everything. "Nara." He said, remembering what it was called. "I haven't see that in a long time."

His other memories started coming back to him. He didn't have access to these particular memories when he had visited as a boy to retrieve Zelda from this world centuries ago. They only came back to him after that kiss in the Arbiter's grounds in this lifetime.

As he looked around, everything started coming back to him. It had been ten thousand years ago, and he had stood in this same chamber with a group of about forty or fifty others, including Hylia, his wife, and her mother, Nayru, as well as his own mother

"Isn't this going to be exciting, Copulus?" He remembered her saying. They were standing right about where he was standing now in the library, waiting for their turn to go through the descriptive book he had just come from. They had both been in their mid-thirties or so, and he was on the security team assigned to guard the scientists from any threats which might await them. "Imagine the discoveries we can make on the connection between the mind and reality. The Writers really outdid themselves making a connection to this world!"

"Yeah, I heard from the advance scouts that it was beautiful." Had been his own response. "But some of the indigenous wildlife can be a handful." Boy, I didn't known the half of it way back then, he chuckled at the thought.

It amazed him that the fire marble lights were still dimly burning in the alcoves along the columns. He wondered if they were the same lights, or if the later generations had put in fresh ones. The last time he was here, he had been told by Daniel that, at that time, this city had only been abandoned by its founders because of a plague relatively recently. He did some quick mental math. That meant the descendants of those who remained only abandoned the city about five hundred years before or so. So, it was conceivable these lights were still left from them.

He turned back towards the door to the staircase up, more of his long buried memories coming back to him with every step.

The old underground city was abandoned completely as Link wandered through the ruins. It hadn't been so empty even the last time he had been there. There had been soldiers and scientists studying the old ruins. Now, there was no one as he came to stand at the docks overlooking the great underground lake. It glowed orange from the luminescent algae which grew at the bottom of the lake and gave the cavern its thirty five hour "day" and "night" cycle. If Link remembered right, this looked like it was the middle of the city's "day."

The city had been built on the shore of the lake from the stone of the surrounding caverns and earth, in the hollow of a great underground chamber many miles in length and breadth. His people, upon their expeditionary return to Terra from Atlantis had discovered the cavern deep underground beneath an active volcano. It was decided by those several generations before Link and his family had migrated to Terra from Lantea in the Pegasus galaxy that the cavern would make an excellent place to begin a new city and research center; one which might rival Atlantis itself in time, while remaining out of view of the new emerging human populations which had evolved on Terra in the Lanteans' million year absence. They would keep to their highest principle of non interference in the underground world hidden away in a deep and vast desert where the scattered tribes never ventured; at least that was the original idea.

This view of the great underground sea had been Link's favorite as a boy when they had first come to settle here. It reminded him of his first home back on Lantea and the seemingly infinite ocean on the surface of which the bright and shining city of Atlantis rested. Here he could come in the underground and allow himself to imagine, for just the briefest of times, that he was back home fishing off the piers of the city.

By the time Link... Copulus, he reminded himself of what his name had been then, had migrated there as a boy with his mother from Atlantis, the underground settlement had still been fairly small. The stone metropolis which lay around him had grown up over the ten thousand years of occupation which had followed his own growth from adolescence to adulthood, and then his and Hylia's relocation to the world which would become known as "Hyrule." He barely recognized it except for a very few of the core city buildings, and most of those which he had known were now buried under millennia of settlement, construction, and civilization. But the lake hadn't changed in all that time. It remained as he remembered it.

They had originally called the city "Duo'oni." It was a numerical designation, "2-1," though he couldn't remember what it had originally referred to. He remembered Daniel had told him at one time that the civilization which had survived until its fall had, with the natural evolution of language, shortened it to "D'ni."

Among the other scientific research going on had been the Writing of the Books. This technology had developed as an offshoot of the stargate technologies, but far more refined and complex. It was a relatively simple thing to connect a wormhole between two stargates with a set of six coordinates and a point of origin. But then began the investigation into making links to, not just other places of space within the same universe and reality, but into other realities and possibilities of realities within the space and time of the ever expanding multiverse. It required, not just a few symbols like a telephone number, but a whole language of descriptive symbols pinpointing and describing the exact world and reality you wanted. Instead of just needing a few dozen symbols on a ring, you needed a whole book to contain the description. Creating these links became something of an art form which developed out of the science, even by the time he and Hylia and the other colonists had left for Hyrule. There had been dozens of these descriptive books which had been written by that point, and judging by how many filled the great library he had emerged in, that art form had continued to develop long after they had gone.

The use of the Books had opened up new worlds to explore, investigate, and research without needing to make the trip by gateship to Terra's southernmost continent to revisit and explore the worlds of this galaxy, especially with the limited resources of an isolated outpost or colony. That became reserved for trips back to Atlantis to store and log important research there for future generations of their scientists. Link had made several of those trips himself by the small, cloaked, cylindrical gateships ferrying the project leaders back and forth to Lantea through the _astria porta_.

"Link." He said his name aloud, looking out at the water. "I've been called just 'the link' or 'the hero' for so long, I've forgotten the sound of my actual name." He mused. "I was Copulus here." It was the difference between the language of his first birth, and the ever evolving language of Hyrule, but still. Even Hylia had been able to keep her name remembered these many millennia, while his had been completely forgotten in the mists of history, reduced to the meaning of the word itself. "Doesn't matter, I suppose, as long as I did what needed to be done."

"The gateships..." He thought out loud. "I wonder if any of them are still here." There was no one down here that he could see, and it looked like there hadn't been anyone in a very long time. He decided that the best place for him to be to find Daniel Jackson was near a stargate. The last time he had come to Terra, or Earth, he had come through the stargate into Atlantis itself when it was run and occupied by Colonel Shepherd's people, having been returned to Earth by them from the Pegasus galaxy. The city was sitting in the middle of a vast ocean on this world then too. He would need a gateship to find it. That meant he had to get to the gateship hanger and see if any of them were still there and intact.

He took one last look at the glowing orange sea and then turned back into the city, and started walking. The gateship hanger had been hollowed out closer to the desert surface, but a distance away from the volcano. The access point to it had been a ring platform in the security building. That had been in the central core of the city then, near the library from which he had so recently emerged. So, that was where he needed to go.

He wandered back through the city to the staircase from which he had emerged. His problem now was locating the remains of the security building. When he had lived here before, they hadn't needed a long staircase down to reach the great library. It had been above the floor of the city along with the other main buildings.

"I'm getting too old for this." He said to no one in particular as he tried to remember in at least what direction the building with the platform had lain. "Of course, it doesn't make sense to make a staircase big enough to fit a horse and rider through comfortably if it's just going to one place." He reasoned. He hadn't paid attention to whether or not there were any side doors or passages off the main corridor.

He tried to imagine the city as it was, and then tried to imagine roughly where the library was in relation to the stairs in front of him. Fairly confident he had a good grasp of it in his mind, he descended the stairwell again, this time trying to pay attention to the walls off to his left, bearing towards what he remembered as the direction of the security building.

The stairwell was also lit by fire marbles still glowing dimly in their own alcoves. As he descended further, and paying more attention, he found that he had been right. There were doors and other passage ways which led off in both directions away from the corridor downwards. When he finally reached the bottom of the stairs near the entrance to the library, he found that he had been right. There was a corridor large enough for two people to walk comfortably side by side together just off to his left as he stood in front of the library's entrance. "How did I miss this?" He wondered.

He took the corridor and continued his search down it. There were stone doors on stone hinges all along this corridor, and, although a few of them had crumbled over time, most of them were very much intact. As he walked, he recognized that the doors inset in the corridor walls were actually part of the fronts of the ancient city's original center, and he had been walking along, not a corridor, but one of the original streets. The gaps between the old stone buildings had been bricked up and smoothed over to produce the corridor, a result of the millennia of growth, construction, and ultimately, the forgetting of this part of the city for something newer.

He finally spied the front of the building in which he had spent the majority of his first adult years. The slate stone door was still closed tight. He walked up to it and put his hand straight out against a certain, unmarked spot on the door and hoped it still had enough power to respond. The outline of his hand glowed blue underneath his skin, and the door opened inwards, still recognizing his particular DNA markers, which in spite of his Hylian incarnations, hadn't changed in ten thousand years. He and his mother had seen to it every time he had been reborn.

He stepped in, and dim lights came on in response to the presence of what his human friend, Colonel Shepherd had called his "ATA" or "Ancient" gene. Good, that meant that there should still be enough power left in the ancient _potentia_, the zero point energy module which had powered the ancient settlement, to operate the ring platform as well as charge the gateships.

The building had never been overly large to his knowledge as he crossed into it, though it, like the rest of the city, had been abandoned long, long ago. He passed through the hallway leading to the operations control where the platform had been eons before. As he did so, he stopped in front of what had been the armory, unlocked the door with the palm of his hand, and entered.

The room lit up exposing racks of small, energy based weapons, as well as larger rifles. He looked at the charge lights on the rack, and most of them read green for fully charged. He didn't know what awaited him on the surface, but he didn't want to be caught exposed.. "Better I go with some protection than without." He said, grabbing a hand pistol, holster, and a weapons belt to hang it on. "Not quite the old sword and shield, but it'll do for now." Going to a drawer he remembered, he opened it and retrieved a small black broochlike object, and attached it to his forest green shirt under his coat. He focused for a brief minute, and a shimmering field of green energy surrounded him like an invisible wrap. "Personal shield still works. Good." He said with approval, then he focused again and the shield dissipated.

Satisfied that he was in a much better position, he left the armory and continued to the old operations center. This was a large chamber which had held all of the computer and surveillance equipment that had fed the ancient city's security forces with the information they needed to do their job. Many of the ancient monitors and equipment began to whir to life from their millennia old stand-by modes as he passed by them to a circular alcove with a platform large enough for three or four men to stand close together. He stepped up onto the platform and placed his hand against the side of the alcove then quickly drew it back again as the device responded quickly. Three or four large metal rings appeared, shooting up from the platform to surround him completely. There was a hum of energy, and then he disappeared from the room in a shimmer of blue light before the rings returned smoothly to their resting place within the platform.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Talon's red, bleary eyes flew open quickly at the sound of the hospital room door opening. He had been sitting in the chair next to his aunt Zelda ever since his father had left. He knew that these incarnations of the two were physically at least ten years younger than himself, but they were identical to the aunt and father he had known as a boy and carried their same souls. He could not think of them in any other way. And the aging king was gravely worried about them both, not as much for their physical bodies. Those would eventually wear out. That was the nature of life, and a mortal could only fight the god of shadow for so long before you either ascended or had to return to the shadows with him.

No, he was more concerned with Zelda's and Link's immortal souls. Would they remain immortal? The thought of a world without his Lady and his hero father was unbearable to him. He would give anything in their service, his kingdom (which rightfully belonged to them in his opinion), his power, his own mortal life, even sacrificing his own eternity to ensure theirs.

His glance went to the open door where two men, one only slightly older than the other, who could have been younger, blonder, clean shaven versions of himself entered. Both were wearing the gray dress uniform of high ranking members of the Royal Hyrule Military Guard, positions they had won by their distinction in service and outstanding courage in in the line of duty, and not because of their family connections.

"Your majesty," they both said at once, coming to attention with a full salute upon seeing him sitting in the chair. Talon waved them both out of that formal nonsense with his hand. "There will be none of that right now in this room, boys." He had always called them "boys" since they had been younger boys, especially when they were in private like this. He would have named them princes and royal heirs after they had been born, but his Lady and father wouldn't permit it. They wanted that title to pass to his own descendants, which it had. His son, Crown Prince John the Second, would be overseeing the responsibilities of government while he was with his "family."

Daphnes, the older man glanced towards his mother's closed eyes with a panicked expression and asked, "is she...?"

"Sleeping." Talon answered quietly, so as not to wake her. "The healers gave her a sedative so she could rest."

"Where is father?" Gaepora, the younger, asked, not having seen the old rancher anywhere in the hospital. "Why isn't he here?" He couldn't imagine his father being anywhere except in the chair next to his mother with her like this. Talon understood that sentiment from his eyes and agreed with it.

"He has gone to find someone who can help my Lady." Talon answered. "An old friend of both of ours."

The two men came to stand next to their mother's bed, opposite their king, neither taking the empty chair that had been vacated by Link when he left. "Healer Kelli said there was nothing which could be done for her; not even the red water would keep the cancer from overwhelming her." Daphnes said. "Father knows of someone who has a cure?"

"In a manner of speaking." Talon answered them cryptically, debating on how much to explain to them. They were both more like his father than he was. They were men of action and courage, intelligent and cunning, but not necessarily spiritually minded. And right now, he didn't want them going and chasing after their father, either to drag him back or to try and help him. This was a quest he needed to accomplish on his own, for his own sake as much as for his Lady's. The real question was how much not to say in order to keep them from following him.

"Well, where is this person?" Gaepora asked. "We can go and help him for mother."

"He is out of our reach, but not your father's. I will not tell you where. Neither of you will do any good trying to follow him, and in any event I have left instructions that would make it impossible for either of you to do so without incredible loss of life, possibly yours." Talon told them in a grave, matter of fact tone. "Don't attempt it, for your parents' sake, especially my Lady's. With _our_ father gone," he used the word "our" to emphasize that they were his family too, "she needs you, both of you, here right now."

He had in fact instructed the guardsmen at the Sacred Grove to forbid entry to the both of them and to arrest them and detain them if they attempted to force their way through, something which, like their father, he knew they were fully capable of. Mr. Impaz was also alerted to stop them from gaining access to the temple library if they made it into the temple at all. He would not be so foolish as to underestimate the progeny of the Hero of Hyrule and the Princess Zelda. There was a reason why they had both made the rank of R.H.M.G. General by the age of forty.

They were both visibly taken aback, and somewhat angered by his decisive tone and wording, but then both of them nodded, acquiescing to the wisdom of their sovereign king. "As you wish, your majesty." Daphnes finally said.

Satisfied that they would not attempt to follow him, Talon sought to explain a little further and hoped they would be receptive to what he had to say. "You are right. There is no cure for her physical body. In three weeks, the red water will no longer help and she will die."

Both of the men looked like he had just physically struck them across the face. "No." Gaepora whispered, tears coming to his eyes. "But I thought father was going to find someone who could help her?"

"He is, Gaepora. You know my Lady's considerable history, and why to this day I still refer to her as 'my Lady?'" Talon asked, folding his hands together, his fingers interlaced with one another.

"We've been told those stories all of our lives, your majesty, but this isn't some mythical goddess from the ancient history books we're talking about. This is our real, flesh and blood mother lying here dying of cancer!" Daphnes responded, his temper beginning to get the better of him.

"Watch yourself with me, General." Talon said, his tone warning the man not to push it with him and trying to check the man's temper before he said or did something he would regret. "And yes, she is your real flesh and blood mother right here and right now. But understand me clearly, she was my aunt, my princess, and my very real goddess two hundred and fifty years before you were born. This woman, your mother, has lived and died and been reborn century after century for ten thousand years. I know because I have watched it myself for the last three hundred years. Her body is dying, but her soul... That is what we are in very real danger of losing here if she is unable to return to the realm of the gods."

"I don't believe this." Daphnes returned, not as chastened as Talon had hoped his younger half brother would be. "Father should be here right now with her, and instead he's off on some wild goose chase and you're spouting religious nonsense about a woman who hasn't left our family's ranch for forty five years."

"This woman should have been queen in my place, and I will not have you disrespecting her in my presence, _General_." Talon fired back. "Your father went to find a person who can help them both return to their proper places in the heavens."

"Why wouldn't the other gods help her if that were true?" Gaepora asked, placing a hand on his brother's shoulder and trying to step in and mediate between his king and his superior officer; both men his brothers.

"I'm not certain." Talon said, taking a deep breath and exhaling allowing his own tension to leave him somewhat at the question. "They aren't responding to any of us, and neither of your parents are able to remember how to ascend on their own. It appears to be blocked for them. Even your grandmothers are silent to any of us."

"Our grandmothers?" Gaepora asked.

"Nayru and Farore." Talon said. "That cannot be new information to you."

"No, I suppose it isn't. Father told us the stories as we were growing up, and of course you hear it all the time from the Sages and the religious folks, but... but I just never really, I mean..." The man was trying to find the words to say.

"I assure you, our father's stories are very real." Talon told the man, again emphasizing the word "our." "He told my brother John and I many of the same stories before he died in our time long ago too, just as he gave us our first swords and taught us how to use them when we were barely out of diapers. I lived through many of the stories I'm sure he told you."

Daphnes appear unconvinced, but he said, "I'm sorry. I just want my mother to be alright, your majesty."

"As do I, Daphnes. As do I." Talon responded. "Please, sit here with us. I could use the company even if she is sleeping and she will be happy to see you when she wakes. Do your own families know yet what has happened?"

"Gilli and the girls are coming to the hospital tomorrow," Gaepora told him.

"Maddie, Sara, and Russell are too." Daphnes responded.

"Malona is watching your parents' livestock for now, but she and her family will need to come out as well. We need to make arrangements for them." Talon told them. "You both are on indefinite, paid family leave as of six hours ago on my orders in case you weren't informed."

"Yes, your majesty, thank you." Daphnes responded.

"Don't. Just be here with me for my Lady." Talon told him. "I'm not going anywhere either. John has the reins of power for the moment while I am here."

"Of course, your majesty." Daphnes responded. He liked and respected the crown prince, who was, like himself, a military man who had only taken a more active role in his father's government after himself serving with distinction in the R.H.M.G. as a field officer. "If anyone can keep parliament and the ministries under control in your absence it would be his highness."

They all chuckled at that, knowing the crown prince's refusal to put up with political nonsense, and the anger and tension which had been in the air finally broke.

The stars shone unblinking out the forward viewport as Link continued to watch the traffic to and from the space station. He hadn't had a view like this for a long time. The last time had been aboard the _Hammond_ where he, Colonel Shepherd, and Shepherd's team had gone to liberate a human village from Ori soldiers and free some scientists who had been trapped there. That had been two hundred and seventy years ago or so. It was a beautiful sight watching the blue globe of Terra against the black, star filled background of space.

The space station Link was observing from his vantage point in a stationary orbit over Terra in the gateship was enormous. It was shaped like a child's spinning top with a great disk at one end and a kind of spike at the other. He had been watching for the past half of an hour as large intersteller ships appeared and disappeared, coming and going into the great, man made space structure. He had learned from listening to the communications traffic while cloaked that it was called "Starbase One," and also "Spacedock." The ships which came and went from it looked nothing like the picture of the _Hammond_ on which he had once ridden with his old friend. These all looked like they had been built around the idea of a central disk with their long, thin, cylindrical engines jutting out from various points, and they had been called names like _Yorktown_, _Excelsior_, _Constellation_, and _Enterprise _by the station's traffic controllers.

He had covered the entire surface of the oceans of Terra in the past several hours looking for Atlantis's unique signature which the gateship should have been able to detect whether the city was cloaked or not, but there was nothing. Either the city had been moved off of Earth in the last three hundred years, or it had been destroyed.

After scanning the oceans, he took the gateship back to the last known position of the Lantean base at the frozen southern pole of this world. According to the sensor equipment, it too had been abandoned being buried under a mile of ice, and there was no trace of the original stargate which had once stood there.

Terra had changed drastically from the time he had known his friends from this world. As he had covered the planet looking for a stargate, he saw the technological and scientific progress the humans had made and it was beginning to rival his own original people's once upon a time. He could also see that it was no longer just the second evolution of humans who populated this world, but there were significant minority populations of other species and races as well, interacting and cooperating with each other more or less peacefully. It was a very different world from the one which John Shepherd had described to him long ago. This people wouldn't find the idea of the stargate or other intelligent peoples threatening at all. Indeed, from the communications he had listened to through the gateship's translator, they seemed to welcome the infinite combinations of diversity. Link could land and walk amongst them freely and no one would bat an eye he was pretty certain.

"Well, what do I do now?" He asked himself. He didn't know where the nearest stargate to Terra was in this galaxy. That information would have been in the database of the outpost in the southern polar base, which was now buried under the ice.

He began to try and remember any other places that John Shepherd had spoken of on Earth related to his government's use of the stargate system. He had told him, many centuries ago, that his government hadn't told the rest of its population about the stargate, or any of the technologies that had been procured or discovered because of it. There were only a handful of sites on the planet that dealt with anything related to it. They had been too afraid of mass panic on the part of their people. After seeing the sights of this world now, Link wondered what they had all been afraid of. It looked like they had adjusted just fine to the existence of a broader understanding of the galaxy and their place in it.

His stomach began to rumble, reminding him that it was time for breakfast. He tried to remember how long he had been awake for and then realized that he hadn't actually slept since he had woken up back in his own bed on his property in Ordon next to Zelda. He hadn't eaten since the quick meal of pumpkin soup at the hospital while waiting for Zelda's tests to complete.

"It's not going to do Zelda any good if I kill myself from exhaustion or hunger." He said, trying to talk sense into himself. "Daniel's just not here yet, and I have no idea where another stargate is. The question is, where can I set down to get some sleep and something to eat?" He needed more information on this world and this time period too.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart." He said to the gold locket he had pulled out of his forest green shirt. It had been a gift to him from Zelda for their fifth wedding anniversary, and he had worn it ever since, never taking it off. He had opened it to look at the much younger picture of his wife on the one side of it. The opposite side held photos of his three children when they were barely out of diapers. "But this is going to take a lot longer than I had hoped. Just hang in there for me until I can get back." He stared at it for a few more minutes, wishing more than anything that he could just return and be by her side and everything would be alright.

He patted the pocket of his coat where the linking book still felt solid and safe next to him. It was his only way of returning home, and he would protect it at all costs for his wife's sake. He closed the locket and replaced it beneath his shirt. "Well, I guess now I learn how welcoming these people really are. No better place to start than knocking on the front door."

Link placed his palm on the control panel and focused on dropping the cloak. Within minutes he received a hail from a professional but friendly female voice, "Unidentified vessel, please state your designation and flight plan."

Link reached deep within his memories to remember how to sound formal and official like he had when he was with the Lantean security forces, "Starbase One, this is the shuttle _Vaganda_. I am requesting permission to dock for rest and food." He made up the name for the gateship from the Lantean word for "wanderer." The traffic controller wouldn't know the difference.

"And can I have your name as the pilot or captain of this shuttle, and your planet of origin?" The traffic controller asked.

"Link Faroson. Planet of origin, Hyrule." He told the controller.

"Hyrule?" The controller responded. "That world isn't in our database."

"I'm sure it isn't, control." Link responded. "It's a long story. I'm not here to cause trouble, I just want to get something to eat, and get some sleep for a few hours." He then added on a sudden inspiration, "If at all possible, I'd like to get some more information on Earth and its historical sites as well." There, now she would think he was a tourist from out of town, which was essentially the truth.

After about a minute of silence, the traffic controller responded again, "Permission granted, _Vaganda_. Please follow these coordinates I am sending you now to shuttlebay three. The shuttlebay will engage its tractor beam to bring you in for parking once you are within one kilometer. Welcome to Starbase One and Earth, sir. As a reminder, all personal weapons are to be kept secured in your vessel while you are on the station. I have you assigned to guest quarters, and there will be a member of Starfleet personnel to show you where they are and how to use our food replicators and other facilities."

"Understood. This old man thanks you very much, control." Link responded. "_Vaganda_ out."

Link nudged the gateship forward towards the station slowly, following the coordinates which had been transmitted to him. The great station grew in his viewport until it filled it and surpassed it with its smooth gray and black surfaces. The gate ship came around to an opening which looked at first like it exposed the internal bay to the vacuum of space until Link caught the blue shimmer of an energy shield across the opening.

When he came to within a kilometer of the opening, he felt a slight jolt as a beam of energy locked itself onto the vessel and began to guide it in. Link powered down and retracted the side nacelle thrusters, surrendering control to the operators of the tractor beam who must have done this hundreds of times before, he figured. They brought the gateship into the hanger and set it down as gently as if they were parking a snowflake.

As agreed, he took his weapons belt off, and tucked it into a compartment behind his pilot's chair. As he stood up, every muscle in his body complained with stiffness and soreness. He yawned, and his stomach complained again. "I'm really getting too old for this." He said to no one but himself. Then he remembered again why he was there, "But Zelda needs me." He said.

He headed to the rear of the craft where he placed his hand on the hatch panel and opened the only doorway to the vehicle. As the door opened, there was a young man, maybe in his mid twenties, with reddish brown hair and light colored skin, in a reddish brown, military style dress jacket, black dress slacks, and a bright red colored turtleneck peaking out from underneath the jacket.

"Greetings, sir." The man said in what sounded like fluent Hylian. "My name is Ensign Carter. I've been assigned as your guest escort. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me."

"How is it that you're speaking my language?" Link asked in surprise from the door opening. "I didn't think anyone here knew it."

"It's a universal translator device which is tied into the station's main computers. It must recognize your language as being related to one or more languages in its database, sir." The younger man answered.

One question had just occurred to his tired mind which the traffic controller hadn't mentioned. "Do you know how long I'll be able to park here?"

"Normally, the docking privileges are extended for seventy two hours, or three periods of Earth's rotation. They can be extended upon request on a case by case basis depending on traffic and availability." Ensign Carter responded.

"Good enough." Link responded as he stepped out of the gateship, turning around to place his hand on the exterior door panel in order to close and seal the access door. "Hopefully, I won't need that long."

"Of course, sir." The man replied. "If you'll follow me, I can show you to your quarters, the guest lounges, information centers, and eateries if you'd like."

"Lead on, sir." Link responded.

"Right this way, then." The ensign said, and began walking. Link followed him obediently, only realizing he was barely paying attention to anything that the man told him when he found himself in what looked like the inside of a spacious one bedroom apartment. He had no idea what route he had taken through the station in order to get there.

"If there won't be anything else, sir?" Ensign Carter asked as he stood near the doorway.

Link looked around at the room. Against the far wall there were large windows through which he could see the bright blue planet with its green and gold landmasses and white clouds. He could see screens, computer monitors, set up around the room, stylish, comfortable looking furniture, and some kind of device set into a wall. What the device did, he had no idea.

"Uh, what does that do?" Link ask, pointing to the small alcove with the computer monitor over it.

"That is the food replicator, sir. I can demonstrate it if you'd like." The ensign said, a trace of humor in his voice. He walked over to the alcove and spoke to it. "Computer." He said, and the black faced monitor lit up with text that Link couldn't read. "Ready." The computer responded with a friendly female voice. The ensign then ordered, "Coffee, hot, with cream and sugar."

Instantly, a cup of light brown, steaming hot liquid appeared in the alcove. The younger man took the cup by the handle and took a sip. "I hope you don't mind, sir. I've had a long day."

"You and me both, son." Link responded wearily. "What else can it make besides 'coffee?'"

"It's programmed with samples of hundreds of dishes and beverage from all the worlds within the Federation." He responded.

What did John call cuccos? He tried to remember. Oh, right. "What about, uh... chicken? Can it do fried chicken?" He wasn't sure if he could really stomach fried chicken just then, but it was the only thing he could think of that would be even remotely similar to something he knew.

"Why don't you come over here and ask it, sir?" The ensign invited sincerely, gesturing to the device. Link came over, feeling a little foolish, but his hunger overrode his pride. "Alright, uh... Computer." He said. "Ready." Came the response. "Fried Chicken, unbreaded." He said.

Immediately, a plate of food appeared within the alcove. It appeared to be a leg and a breast of fried cucco with some seasoning and a side of mashed potatoes with some kind of gravy. A knife and fork appeared on the side of the plate as well. It smelled wonderful. "Thank you." Link said.

Ensign Carter smiled and said, "Of course, sir. When you're done, just place the whole plate and silverware in the replicator recycler here." He gestured to another opening near the replicator. "The computer will take care of the rest."

"Thank you, again." Link said, taking a bite of the potatoes, and then removing himself and his dinner plate to a nearby table and chair where he began to tear into it.

"My shift ends in a few hours, sir, but there will be someone else to help you if you need it." The ensign said, and then left the "guest quarters."

Link polished off the replicated plate of fried cucco and potatoes with gravy, and then deposited the plate and silverware as he had been instructed. He then wandered into the bedroom of the small apartment to find a bed already made and waiting for him. He was just able to get his boots and socks off before his eyes closed on their own. He was dreaming before his head hit the pillow out of his control.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

He was standing in the great hall of Hyrule Castle. In his hands were the Master Sword and the Hylian Shield which had so defined him for most of his life. On his head was the elongated green cap. He was adorned with the chain-mail and green tunic which had become his uniform. In front of him was a grinning evil face that he was all too familiar with, and he wished he had never laid eyes on.

Imprisoned high above in an energy shield was the princess in an ancient pink and silver dress adorned with the Triforce symbol which had also defined his existence in this life. Her eyes were closed as if she was asleep. He was desperate to deal with the green skinned evil man in front of him and free her from her prison. It was the reason for his being.

Then the grinning evil main disappeared into a shower of black smoke, and Link watched in horror and outrage as the black smoke drifted up towards the imprisoned princess and invaded her body like a parasite befouling her perfect pearl like skin with strange, geometric markings all over her neck, face, and hands. Then her eyes opened, and they weren't "his" Zelda's eyes at all. They were evil, perverse, and taunting. And Link's real nightmare began as the princess leaped from her prison, sword in hand to face him in combat.

He was paralysed. He couldn't do it, could he? Plasma balls erupted from her delicate, feminine hands and were thrown at him like high speed balls from a child's game. He took them on his shield, unwilling to redirect them back to her like he knew he had to. Then Zelda's face changed. Her golden blond hair gained streaks of silver and gray, and laugh lines deepened on her beautiful face. "I'm scared Link! Aren't you going to be there to save me?" She pleaded with him.

"I'm trying, Zelda! I'm trying to find him! It's just going to take a little more time!"He called out as he caught another plasma ball with the edge of his sword, deflecting it off towards the marble relief of the three goddesses surrounding the Triforce behind her. It shattered and burst into flames. "Just hang in there! I will save you! I promise!" He called out to her.

"You will never save her, little hero!" Came a deep, demonic voice from his beloved. "I win this time." And then the laughter began as Link, in tears of frustration caught the next plasma ball with Fi's blade and hurled it back at the demonic eyes which were taunting him. And then Zelda screamed horribly in agony as she erupted into flames.

"Nooooo!" Link screamed, and then his eyes flew open to the soft orange glow of the space station's guest quarters nightlights which ran along the edges where the walls met the floor. He brought his hand to his face, and it was damp and clammy. His whole body and his clothing felt wet with sweat.

"Just another nightmare." He told himself. It wasn't the first. It wasn't even that unusual for him. He had the nightmares frequently. He was blessed with a more than understanding wife when they kept them both up at night. The same wife he was here to try and save.

He sat up in the bed and swung his legs around to place his feet on the floor. He didn't know for how long he had been asleep, but it was going to have to be enough. It was time to get up and get back to work. He needed to find a stargate.

Then a particularly acrid smell reached his nostrils that was so very different from the clean, well kept smell of the room he was in. He sniffed around trying to find the source of it. Then sniffing downwards, he realized it was coming from himself. He needed a shower and a change of clothes. "No one's going to want to get within ten feet of me, let alone help me out." He mumbled.

Trying to clear his head, he called out, "Computer!"

"Ready." Came the womanly voice. He wished it had been Zelda's.

"How do I take a shower in this room?" He asked.

Immediately, a light came on from an open doorway off of the bedroom. "Please feel free to use the bathroom to your left." Came the computer's response.

"Thanks." He said. Then he asked, "Where can I get my clothes cleaned?"

The computer apparently either didn't understand that question, or didn't have a good answer for it, because it was followed by silence. "Fine. I'll figure it out on my own." Came the old man's tired retort followed by a yawn.

The ancient woman was following him, first with her cooly dispassionate eyes, and then as he moved from place to place making inquiries in the station's public information centers he spotted her nearby just within range of a Hylian's ability to overhear what inquiries he was making.

Except for the greenish tinge to her skin which, along with her upswept eyebrows marked her as the race known among these people as "Vulcan", he would have sworn that she was of Hylian origin. Her aged lifespan was apparent from the silvery white color of her short cut hair, and the wrinkled appearance of her skin. In some ways, she reminded him of the ancient Sage of Time, Impa whom he had known through many different lifetimes, though he could tell this woman had been more diminutive than that ancient warrior woman had been in her prime. This elderly woman wore a simple brown and black set of robes with a black brooch, a pyramid with a small red circle at the apex surrounded by a larger three quarter circle, fixed to her right breast.

Without looking directly at her, he could see that she sat in a cushioned chair nearby, her elbows placed comfortably on the low armrests of the chair, and her fingertips together in a steepled position. She didn't appear to be upset or even concerned about him. There was neither amusement, nor disapproval in her face. In fact he could read no emotion whatsoever, only observation and whatever cold calculations might be going on behind those eyes. The only thing of which he was certain was that those calculations involved him.

He had made no progress in his search so far. The station's computer network seemed to hold no references to the a_stria porta_, the stargates, except for some three hundred year old television series called "Wormhole X-treme." That reference seemed to be the closest he could get, and the descriptions of the show seemed to fall into line with the function of a stargate, but as far as the public database was concerned, it was merely a fictional series which ran for ten years and spawned a couple of movies besides. There was no mention of Atlantis, the real Atlantis at any rate, or Earth's previous stargate program. It was as though they had never existed as far as the public history was concerned. Could it really have been possible that John's government never revealed any of it to their people? At any rate, it was a dead end, and he was losing hope as he fingered the binding on the book in his coat pocket. He needed help.

He decided that if the old woman was so interested in him, then perhaps he should have a chat with her. Link left the terminal he was using and moved to the chair the old woman was seated in. She did not move except for her eyes, which continued to follow him. As he came to stand in front of her, he felt awkward, not knowing what a customary, polite greeting might be for one so ancient.

"Peace and long life." The woman said.

"And to you as well." Link responded, thankful she had begun the conversation.

The old woman cocked one eyebrow in surprise. "I have met few in the Federation who did not know the traditional Vulcan response."

"I'm sorry. I'm not from this 'Federation.'" Link responded. "I hope I didn't offend you."

"There is no need to apologize where no offense has been made. Your response was sufficient in its intent, if not its form. The traditional response is, 'Live long, and prosper.'"

"Thank you. I'll remember that." Link said. "My name is Link. Link Faroson."

"I am called T'Pol." The woman responded. She then gestured to a chair opposite her, motioning for Link to sit down next to her.

"Thank you again." He said again. "I saw you watching me as I was using the information terminals, I thought I'd come over and find out why I was so interesting."

"The inquiries you were making interested me. But perhaps we should discuss this further in a more discreet location. There are few others who know the things of which we speak, but those who do have ears everywhere and a very long reach. Doubtless they are now aware there is someone on the station who is looking into the term 'stargate'. It would be much to your advantage if we could speak more privately."

"My rooms on the station?" Link offered.

"No," T'Pol countered. "What ship did you arrive on?"

"It is a small shuttle. It is parked in one of the shuttle bays. The lock's set so only I can open it." Link responded.

"That should be adequate," Her aging voice replied. "Let us be going, then, you and I as discreetly as possible."

"I have not heard the term 'stargate' in a very long time, over a hundred Earth years in point of fact, but I still remember to what it refers." T'Pol said as they both sat in the forward pilot's seats of the small gateship. Link darkened the forward viewport so no one could see them from the outside. "My question would be why you are seeking information on it. What meaning does that word have to you?" T'pol asked.

Link debated how much to tell the woman. How much of his story would she believe? He needed as much information as he could get. If John's government hadn't told its people anything about the stargate or Atlantis, then it was certain none of them would know anything about him beyond the video game that was played three hundred years before this point in their timeline. But she recognized the word, and acted as though she knew what it was. He could tell the truth, but how much of it?

"I need it to communicate with someone; someone I knew a long time ago. I need his help." Link told her. "My wife needs his help."

The old woman thought for a minute, and then said, "To my knowledge, the stargate has not been used by anyone except for a very few people on this planet for almost three hundred years, and their control over its use is absolute. It is illogical that you, obviously neither from Earth nor apparently from any known world within or without the Federation, should know about it much less require its use. The only reason why anyone would need to use such a device to contact someone is if the person you wish to contact is much farther away than subspace communications can reach. There is more to your inquiry than you are telling me."

"And you obviously know more than you are telling me." Link countered. "I must find him. My wife's future depends on it." He told her, choosing his words carefully.

"Indeed." T'pol responded, pensively. "Perhaps I could be of more assistance if I knew the name of the person you wish to contact. As you pointed out, I obviously know more about this than I am telling you."

Ornery old woman, Link thought to himself his face betraying a cockeyed smile. He liked ornery. At this point, he had little left to lose and everything to gain. "His name is, or was, Daniel Jackson."

T'Pol folded her hands, her face betrayed some disturbance at this name. "You know this name, don't you?" Link asked.

"I do." She said carefully. "It is another name I have not heard in a very long time. But if what I know of him still holds true, if he wished to be found by you, he would have already made himself known. I don't see how accessing the stargate would help." T'Pol answered. "I also don't understand why you would have thought the journey to Earth would be necessary in order to contact him."

"So he has ascended then? You know this for a fact?" Link asked, ignoring her latter observation.

"If I understand what you mean correctly, then yes." She let her last question go unanswered for the moment. "My shipmates and I encountered him over a hundred and thirty years ago when I was the science officer on what was thought to be Earth's first true deep space exploration ship, the NX-01 _Enterprise_. It sits as a museum now in California on the planet below us. He became a 'stowaway' on our ship as we were conducting experimental hyperspace trials using schematics from a secret program run by one of Earth's nation states before their third world war. There was an accident and we were..." She paused, trying to decide how much to reveal, "thrown off course. Suffice it to say he was instrumental in assisting our return home. I never had the chance to encounter him again, but, working with a covert division of Starfleet intelligence several years later, I learned a great deal about his life prior to his 'ascension' as you call it, and his association with the stargate."

"You know where Earth's stargate is now, don't you?" Link asked her.

"I do." She responded. And I know the people who control it." She said. "They wouldn't let you get close to it, even if it could help you. They won't even reveal its existence to the rest of Starfleet or the Federation. They haven't for over a hundred years. It's proven too useful to their operations for outside interference."

"This Starfleet, what is it?" Link asked.

T'pol looked at him curiously, then said, "Starfleet has become the Federation's military arm. Ostensibly they explore the galaxy, but they also patrol as peacekeepers, and fight wars when the necessity arises. This station is a Starfleet facility."

"And these folks that have the stargate, they're also Starfleet?" He continued, trying to understand.

"In name." T'Pol responded. "Most of Starfleet and the Federation don't know they exist. They have no official name, but those who do know of them refer to them as 'Section Thirty-One,' named for the particular part of Starfleet's charter which supposedly sanctions their existence. If the rest of the Federation knew of their existence, there would be an outcry across the quadrant."

"Why?" Link asked.

"Because they routinely violate the Articles of the Federation. Supposedly they do so in order to keep the Federation intact and safe from all threats, at least this is what they tell themselves." T'Pol answered, her eyes taking on a haunted quality. "They call it pragmatism."

"It sounds like you know a lot about them; a lot more than they like for people to know." Link observed.

"I was recruited by them a long time ago after my tour on _Enterprise._ It was my mistake; one of many." T'Pol replied.

"You're talking pretty freely about all of this for being an intelligence operative." Link told her.

"I'm old," she said, "even for a Vulcan. There isn't much they can do to me now. As I said, my association with them was a mistake. One I will never be able to fully correct." She paused for a minute, and then asked, "You said your wife's future depended on finding this person. Perhaps you could shed more light on this for me?"

"It's complicated." Link responded evasively.

"There are few things in life which are not. Perhaps you could simplify it for me." She replied, refusing to be deterred.

"She's ill. The doctors in our world can't cure her and she's dying." Link told her.

"And you are hoping Daniel Jackson can cure her?" T'Pol asked, trying to follow him.

"No. Even if he did, we would still run up against this again sooner rather than later. We both need his help to ascend again." Link said. "We've been prevented by the Others in our world as part of a punishment for interfering too much. We've kept our end of it and stayed out of the affairs of the rest of our world for forty five years, but we have heard nothing from the Others, and our memories of how to ascend have been taken from us. If either of us die now, we'll be lost forever. This is why I need Daniel's help."

Bang. Bang. Bang. Link turned his head as far as it would go towards the source of the sudden noise. The sound came from the rear door of the gateship. "Starfleet security! Open up for inspection!" Came the voices of very official sounding men.

"Just a minute!" Link called back. Turning to T'Pol he asked more quietly, "Do they normally do inspections like this?"

"No." T'Pol answered.

"Right." Link responded. "Care to go for a ride?" He asked the old woman.

"It does not appear either of us has a choice." She responded.

Link put his hand on the control interface and willed the gateship to come to life. An official female voice came through his comm saying, "Shuttle _Vaganda_, power down your engines and submit to inspection."

T'Pol looked at him intently and told him gravely, "Not what I would recommend."

Link lifted the gateship up off of its parking space and launched it towards the open bay doors, protected only by a force shield meant to keep the vacuum of space at bay, but not to prevent larger objects from moving in and out.

"Shuttle _Vaganda_," the voice warned again, "stand down or prepare to be tractored."

"Not on your life." Link said. He then willed the gateship to cloak, and it disappeared from sight as he altered its course back to the planet from which it came.

"Cloaking device?" T'Pol asked.

"Like I said. It's complicated." He replied. "Is there somewhere I can drop you off on the surface?"

"My apartment in San Francisco would not be safe for either of us right now." She said. "I own a house in a small town in a region called Pennsylvania on this continent. I can give you the coordinates. You can land just outside of town." T'Pol said.

"I thought you were from Vulcan." Link said.

"I haven't resided on my homeworld for over a century for personal as well as professional reasons. There was no logic to my return." She replied, and then said no more about it as Link hit the atmosphere and veered towards the coordinates she gave him. "There is much of your story you have not shared with me. Perhaps I could be of more use to you if I knew it." She said.

Well, at this point what could it hurt? He asked himself. So, he went into more detail telling her about where he was from, who and what he was, how he came into contact with John Shepherd and the people of Stargate Command on Atlantis, as much as he could say from the time it took for them to travel from the high atmosphere to the outskirts of Carbon Creek, Pennsylvania where he landed quietly and cloaked in a clearing in the nearby woods.

"That is quite the story you tell." She told him as the gateship touched down. "At one point in time I would have denied the plausibility of it, but I have since learned to keep a much more open mind. Still, if what you say is true, there is no logic to your quest." She rose from her seat to leave the small vessel.

"What do you mean?" Link said with confusion. "If I don't find him, my wife will cease to be."

"As do the rest of us eventually." She turned to answer him. "We must learn to accept that fact, even if you have previously possessed the luxury of not."

"It has never truly been a luxury." Link said. "It has been more of a curse."

"Then there is no logic to your desire to ascend again. As long as you continue to ascend and hold an attachment to the mortal affairs of your world, the cycle you spoke of will not end. Logic dictates that it will only end when you cease your attachments altogether. In your wife's case, it is her attachment to the affairs of your world. In your case, it is your attachment to your wife." She said.

Her words were coolly detached and to the heart of the matter. It was a truth Link hadn't considered, and honestly hadn't wanted to consider.

"If what you have said is true," she continued, "then the Others in your reality may not have chosen to contact you until it is time for their judgment to be rendered, and that will not happen until the point of death if my understanding is correct. Neither you nor your wife have yet died, therefore they are still waiting and watching. Perhaps this is why Daniel Jackson, who would know everything about you as soon as you appeared in our world, has kept silent as well."

After a few minutes of silence she said, "The stargate is in an underground facility in Colorado called Cheyenne Mountain near the old city of Colorado Springs." She gave him another set of coordinates. "The facility is deep underground and most of the original access points from the surface were destroyed in the third world war. Section thirty-one personnel access it by means of transporter pads. You will have to find another way inside."

"You said most of them?" Link asked.

"There is still a small access tunnel that reaches from the surface down into what used to be a United States Airforce facility known as Stargate Command. It was used for emergency purposes and ventilation. The last time I was there, it was still intact and passable. The facility's personnel often overlook will require a rope to rappel down part of it." She told him without explaining any further as to how she knew that.. T'Pol then raised her hand in a salute which Link didn't recognize. "In any event, I wish you good luck. Peace and long life, Link Faroson."

Link raised his hand in an attempt at the same gesture, "Live long and prosper, T'Pol. And thank you for your wise counsel."

She nodded her head in response. "I will remain in Carbon Creek for some time. You may return here if you need further assistance. Section Thirty One is a formidable opponent to say the least, even to someone with your professed skills."

"Thank you again." He said.

Then she went to the rear of the ship and opened the door. The bright sunlight of morning filtered through the trees into the gateship's opening. She exited into the woods and headed eastward into town. Link watched her through the forward viewport until she was out of sight.

He fingered the linking book in his pocket again, and asked himself, "Am I really wrong in taking this course of action? Have been doing this for so long that it's the only course of action I know how to take any more?"

He put his hands on the control panel pensively. "So, do I go and take on a mountain full of bad guys in the hopes that Daniel will somehow find me and agree to help? Or do I go home and be with my wife and hope her mother is in a good mood when Zelda finally dies?"

He didn't know the answer any more as he stared pensively out the viewport.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The region known as Colorado, with its majestic mountains and forests, reminded the old man of his own home land of Hyrule (and, more recently, Ordon in particular) as he did a flyover of his target to get a better sense of the layout of the land. Cheyenne mountain and the old city of Colorado Springs had been a prime target of a thermonuclear attack during what T'Pol referred to as their third "world war" almost two hundred and fifty years ago. According to Link's sensors, the radiation he knew was the inevitable result of such an attack had all but vanished at this point, but because the area had been rendered uninhabitable for so long nothing remained of the old city or military structures, at least not on the surface that he could see. There was a more recent, more modern settlement some distance from the original site, but according to the gateship's instruments, the only thing which was down there at the target coordinates for a hundred mile radius was pristine forest and mountains.

The gateship's life signs detector indicated numerous people down in the forest, though not in any concentrated or organized fashion. There was nothing that would indicate a military installation, even under the surface. Link focused the sensors in on the coordinates T'Pol gave him. To the eastern side of the mountain he could see there was a small metal hatch of some kind lying near what might have been a service road at one time.

On a whim, he also did a search for a ring platform. He knew from his old friend's stories that Stargate Command had, at one time, used ring platforms regularly and had installed them on their own space faring battle cruisers. The gateship wasn't equipped with one, but it was worth the look to see if one had been installed on the surface. After a quick search though, he found nothing. Nope, if he was going to do this, it would have to be the hard way.

He found a clearing near the old access road, and piloted the gateship towards it, setting it down gently and quietly. "The truth is, I really don't need to risk going down there to wait for Daniel." He said to himself as he powered down the gateship, except for the cloak. "I should be close enough. I can just sit right here and wait for him."

His thoughts drifted back to what T'Pol had said to him when she left. Deep within himself, he knew she was right. The only reason he was here was because he didn't trust his mother or Hylia's for that matter, and the only reason why he didn't trust them now was because neither had talked to them for forty five years; not that he should have expected them to. "I shouldn't have expected them to talk to us. That would have been interfering in mortal affairs." He told himself. "And besides, the gods know I didn't really try and talk to them either." The more he thought about it, the more he realized what the truth was. "I'm scared." He finally admitted. "I'm scared of losing her. I've always been scared of losing her. I can't let her go." His eyes began to water at the thought.

It had been the abiding truth of his life for such a long time as he allowed his memories to drift back to that first time they had faced this. She looked then much as she does now, he thought. She had been lying in a bed, meditating and preparing for her moment of ascension. Hyrule had still been young to them then even though they had spent more than thirty years of their lives there.

His mother and hers had already passed into the other plane of existence some twenty years earlier, and now it was their turn to either make the transition or else end their existence forever. There had been tears in his eyes then too at the thought of being alone once she had gone.

Hylia had always been the more spiritual of the two of them. Being a security officer didn't usually afford many opportunities to meditate and contemplate your own existence. Deep within himself, he knew that he wouldn't be following her, and whether she ascended, or passed on, he would be saying good-bye.

He remembered when he finally saw her shining, shimmering form of pure energy rise from her clothing, shedding them along with the rest of her mortal life. She had met him in his mind as he watched her. "Don't grieve for me, Copulus. We will be reunited sooner than you think." She had said.

"I don't know if I'm ready for that yet, Hylia." He had told her. "I don't know if I ever will be."

"Have faith, my love." She told him gently, as he began to weep more freely. "Practice the meditations that I taught you. Let go of your burdens, and your attachments, and you will join me."

"I'm just a soldier, my love, not an ascetic or a scientist. My brain may be able to do it, but my soul... I don't know if I'm capable." He had told her.

"Have faith, Copulus." She told him again.

"Have faith." He repeated to himself as he found himself still sitting in the gateship's pilot seat. He could feel the wet tears that had fallen down his cheeks. "I was never very good at that, Hylia, and you knew it even then."

He remembered now. He hadn't been able to do it on his own, even as he did what she told him to do. He couldn't just let go on his own and it frustrated him until he lay on his own deathbed. That was when she came to him again and guided him the rest of the way. "You wouldn't let me go either, my love." He said out loud. "You helped me let go."

He checked the chronometer on his control panel. It had already been almost an hour since he had landed. He wondered how long he would have to sit and wait for his old friend. The truth was that it had been almost twenty four hours since he arrived in this world. If Daniel was going to make an appearance, he would have done so by now. As an ascended being, Link knew Daniel could travel at the speed of light even though he would need to use the stargate system or 'stow away' on a vessel with faster than light capabilities in order to move between the expansive distances of the galaxy. That should have been plenty fast enough to get here by now.

"Have faith." Link repeated. "Maybe it's time I followed your advice, Zelda." He took the linking book out of his coat pocket and opened it up to the back panel. The moving, rotating picture of the main hall of the Temple of Time whirled in front of him. He would be leaving the cloaked gateship where it was, and it would eventually run out of power and be exposed, but that was no concern of his. This people that now inhabited this world would be able to cope with it. It wouldn't destabilize it like it once might have.

He brought his hand up above the panel and began to lower it towards the book.

"Link!" Came the sound of a very familiar voice.

"Daniel?" Link responded, taking his hand away from the book and closing it. He looked around the inside of the gateship, but couldn't see anyone.

"Link, I know you're here outside of Cheyenne Mountain. I don't have a lot of time, so I need you to listen very carefully." Daniel's disembodied voice came again. "I'm sorry, I knew you were in our reality before and I know why, but I've only just been able to overcome this device enough to talk to you now."

"I'm listening, Daniel." Link responded, all of his attention given over.

"I'm trapped underground by a group of people called section thirty one. They have me imprisoned by some kind of device. I think it's some combination of an anti prior device and sangraal technology. I don't know, I've never encountered anything like it before. None of us have. I ventured down here to investigate and the next thing I know they've got me locked away in a box somewhere in the old S.G.C. I don't even know how long I've been here. I need you to get me out of here and destroy this device. I wouldn't ask this of you if I didn't need it, but I don't think they've got good plans for me. And if they've got one working device like this, I don't know if they've got good plans for the Others either. I know you specialize in this kind of impossible mission, and I don't have any other options."

Link put the book back in his coat pocket, got up and retrieved his energy pistol from its hiding place. "We don't leave our people behind, Daniel. Not now, not ever." He responded.

"Hurry." Daniel's voice said. And then he was silent.

Link wrapped the white weapons belt around his waist, sliding the pistol into the holster. He checked to make sure the personal shield was still where he had fixed it to his shirt. He then went to the rear of the gateship to check and see if there was still any cord or rappelling line in the storage. There was. He grabbed it and slipped it over his shoulder. There was also a survival knife in a sheath which he took and fixed to his belt, and a hand held lamp which was shoved into a pocket. He was really wishing now for his old pouches and kit that he would carry from one demon infested temple or dingy old building to another. But, he would make do. The ancient mirror shield he had wielded once upon a time had been useful against energy weapons though, he thought.

"Okay, let's do this one more time." He said to no one in particular, and opened the rear hatch to the gateship. "I'm coming, my friend. Just hang on for me."

Link emerged from the darkness of the ancient access shaft into another darkness. He pulled the hand lamp out of his pocket and strapped it to his wrist, flipping it on. It cast a long, bright beam piercing the darkness in front of him. The air was stale and dusty.

Most of the access shaft had still been intact. It was only the first fifty feet or so where the original ladder had been torn away. He had rappelled down until his booted feet found the remains of the rusted steel, and he was able to proceed down. He was thankful for it. His rope had just about reached its end.

The light was cast out into what looked like an ancient cement block tunnel or corridor reinforced with steel. It was filled with metal and stone debris littering the floor and sides. The walls of the corridor had different signs and symbols on them, none of which he could read, but which he assumed were a part of the original facility's workings. There was no sign of technology or human presence that would indicate anyone had been in this part of the facility for hundreds of years. How T'Pol had known of the shaft or this section he couldn't guess.

Link removed his pistol from his holster and kept it in his left hand, aiming the light with his right. His back was in pain and complaining from the climb down the shaft, but he ignored it. He didn't have the time to be an old man right now, he told himself. His friend needed him to be the hero he used to be, at least this one last time.

He threw the beam of the light around to try and get a better sense of where he was. To his right, the corridor continued further until it split off in new directions. The debris continued throughout the corridor. He cast the beam up to the ceiling. There were cracks that ran all through it, and it looked as though huge chunks had falled away, but he was reasonably certain that it had been done with its crumbling for a long time.

He wished Daniel had told him where in the facility he was, but the ascended being had ceased communicating with him. "It's not like its the first time I've gone in completely blind, now is it?" He said to himself. "No, it certainly isn't. It's the story of my life."

The debris crunched under his boots as he began to move forward. "So where are you, Daniel? Doesn't look like anyone's bothered with this level for a while. Maybe I'm still too far up." He said quietly to himself.

He went cautiously down the dark corridor, passing several open doors which led to different smaller rooms beyond, but no stairs or shafts that he could tell. All of the rooms still held equipment, books, furniture and so on as he briefly glanced in them with his light. It looked like the previous occupants had left in a hurry as he noticed drinking mugs and open books and notebooks left in various places on the dusty desks and shelves.

He wandered through the corridors on that level until he was certain he had walked the entire length of them and found nothing to indicate anyone had been there recently. He passed the closed door of what looked like an elevator shaft several times as he went around the corridors. As he came back to it again, he stood and studied it. "I don't know of anyone who would build an elevator into a building and wouldn't have a set of stairs to go with it as a back up." He reasoned. On the elevator were symbols which he recognized as some of Colonel Shepherd's people's numbers. "Nineteen." He made out. He wondered if that was the number of the level he was on. "Does that mean nineteen up, or nineteen down?"

He shone his light to the wall next to the elevator and saw a door which had been set in and away from the corridor so that he hadn't noticed it before. On it, there was a picture of what looked like a stick figure person walking down stairs. He tried the handle and found that it wouldn't turn. Link studied the door for a minute and found the hinges. He stepped back from the door and reset his pistol to a higher setting and fired it at the hinged, shearing them off with a bright blue beam of energy. The next to be cut was the door's lock. It fell away from the door frame with a metallic crash.

"Damn. I hope they're not on the next level down, or else I just told everyone I'm here." He said, cursing himself as he cautiously stepped into the stair well. He shone his light up and down the stairs. Higher up he could see the ceiling and side walls had collapsed in on the stairs, and they were twisted and impassible, but the metal stairs which led downward were still intact. He quietly and carefully proceeded downwards.

It was a long descent as he stopped at each level to listen and observe. He reasoned that only the levels which looked or sounded like they had any activity would be worth investigating. Those nearest to where he began were dark and silent, and he proceeded onwards. It was when he reached the door marked "twenty-six" that, when he switched off his lamp, he noticed the glow of corridor lighting coming from the cracks around the doorway.

Link silently reset his pistol to a heavy stun setting. He didn't want to kill anyone if he didn't have to, that wasn't why he was here, although he didn't want them getting up right away either. The corridor beyond was silent as he pressed his ear to the door. He willed his personal shield on, and turned the door handle to enter the lit corridor. Surprisingly, it turned without difficulty.

The door creaked open louder than he had hoped as he pulled slowly against it, but age and rust had conspired against him. The crack widened to the point where he had to allow his eyes to adjust to the bright light of the corridor beyond. There were still no sounds of movement as he waited for a few minutes for his old eyes to stop hurting. Once they did, he risked a quick peek out the crack.

The corridor beyond was much the same as the level he had emerged in, but in far better shape. It looked as though the damage from the war had never reached this far underground. Strips of lighting similar to what he had seen on the space station lined the floors and ceilings, and flat black computer monitor terminals lined the walls of the old cement and steel corridor which was otherwise empty.

He then risked opening the door further and slipping through it and into the lit corridor. The door remained open on its own, and he had to pull it shut behind him, carefully scanning the space around him as he did so.

"Okay, so where would they keep an ascended being locked up?" He asked himself silently. Just the thought that they could keep an ascended being captive in a place like this was disturbing and had profound implications. Ascension opened up the vast knowledge of the galaxy you were in to you, and gave you tremendous power, he knew from experience. Were they trying to harness that knowledge and power? That was a dangerous idea. "There is a reason we don't interfere with the mortal realms," he said to himself, and then he reminded himself of his own constant interference, "at least where just mortals are concerned. They really don't know what they're playing with."

Seeing that the way was clear, he needed more information. He went up to a black computer monitor and asked it quietly, "Computer?" The screen came on and displayed various piece of information, none of which he could make out. "Show me a map of this facility." He told it.

A floor plan of that level appeared on the screen, displaying also where he was in relation to it. "How many people are currently in this facility?" He asked it.

"Thirteen." Came a quiet female voice in response.

Twelve other people. That wasn't very many compared to the size of the facility. But, according to the floor plans and diagrams the computer displayed, there were only three levels of the original facility which were being occupied and used. "Show me their locations." He told it.

White dots appeared transposed over the floor plans. It appeared that there was no one on this level right at that moment. On the next level down however there was a group of three dots in a single room. The rest of them were on the lowest level, marked "twenty eight."

There was a set of words marking the room the three dots were in that he couldn't read. He knew it was a longshot, but he thought it shouldn't hurt to ask, "Computer, can you translate the text on the screen into Lantean... Uh, Ancient?" That was what John and his people had called Link's original people from Atlantis. Ancients. Much to Link's surprise, the text changed into something he hadn't seen for a long time, but could still understand very well. And he didn't like what he saw. It read, "Project Ascension."

"Computer, what is 'Project Ascension'?" He asked it.

"That information is restricted." Came the reply. Well, his luck with it was bound to run out sooner or later. Then he saw several of the white dots from the lowest level begin to move quickly through the floorplan to a room marked 'turbolift,' which he remembered from the station was like Atlantis' transporter lifts.

"Computer, clear monitor." He told it. The screen went black, and he moved quickly back to the stairwell door, and ducked back inside, closing the door. If they were coming up to meet him through a 'turbolift,' he would be going down by means of the stairs.

Chances are, he reasoned, they had some kind of a portable life signs detector with them, which meant he wouldn't actually be able to hide from them. The best he could do as he slipped down the metal stairs to the next landing below was to try and stay ahead of them. He had memorized where "Project Ascension's" location was relative to the stairs, and it was a good distance from the turbolift.

He turned the door handle, and it turned just as well as the other. He didn't wait for his eyes to adjust this time. He knew he didn't have the time, and there had only been three people on this level. None of them had been in the corridor. All he had to do was make it to the room and stun the 'white dots' before they had the chance to stun him. Then he would have to figure out what they were keeping Daniel in and how to free him.

He started into the corridor and ran down the hall towards the room in question. This level's corridors looked much like the level above it, retaining even the original steel doors to the rooms and chambers within. He reached the door of the room he had seen on the floorplan and reached out for the handle.

Then the world around him grew fuzzy and disorienting and his stomach became nauseous. "Oh damn." He swore, knowing what was happening around him. He mentally prepared himself to deal with what would be waiting for him when he rematerialized as the corridor dissolved into millions of disparate pieces only to be reassembled moments later into a completely different room, one in which he found himself looking at the business ends of what were obviously hand held energy weapons. Three large men in black variations of the Starfleet uniforms he had seen on the space station were standing behind the pistols.

"Lower your..." He heard them say before he fired his own at the three men standing in front of him. One of them managed to fire a bright red beam of energy at him, but his personal shield took the hit without transferring any of the energy to his own person. The men fell stunned where they stood, he then dashed to the side and fired at a fourth man who was standing behind some kind of control panel. He crumpled to the floor too. "Not my first outing, folks." He said, shaking his head. "Amateurs." He scoffed.

"Well, now I know where they were heading." He saw as it was the same number of men as dots on the computer screen. He took a minute to make sure the men weren't moving. They would be out for a couple of hours, he knew. Four down, eight to go, he mentally ticked off a count.

He took a look around the room. He was standing on some kind of platform that somewhat resembled the ring platforms his own, original people used to use. He remembered the _General Hammond_, Colonel Carter's battlecruiser hundreds of years before, had a similar teleportation technology that didn't require the rings to materialize or dematerialize the person or thing being teleported. "Stupid." He admonished himself. "I should have remembered they could do that, even back in John's time. No wonder they didn't worry about my poking around."

He went over and looked at the control panel for the teleportation pads. "Not going to be good if you guys call for reinforcements. Hope this slows you down a little." He said as he fired his weapon into the controls, sending sparks everywhere as circuits burned, melted, and fused together. Not satisfied with that, he also fired at the pads which he had just appeared on. Sparks and smoke exploded from them too.

Checking the men he had felled, he took one of their own energy weapons and shoved it into his pocket. "Hope this is set to stun for the sake of your friends." He told the unconscious man.

Now he had to figure out where in the facility he was again. He went to the metal door of the room and carefully opened it a crack, listening for the sounds of activity. There were none, as he opened it to find himself in one of the same corridors he had already been in. A number on the nearby wall read "twenty seven."

"I'm still on the right level. Now I need to find the 'Project Ascension' room again." He said to himself. He started through the corridor, but very near to the door he had just come out of he noticed a sliding door system similar to what he had seen on the station. It looked out of place in the less than modern walls of the corridors. The symbol for the turbolift which he had seen on the space station was emblazoned on it. As he approached it, the door slid open to reveal a small, empty circular room.

"Can't have that working right now either." He said, and he fired into what looked like key controls, trying to disable it. After several shots, the lights in the room went dark and the scent of burnt circuitry wafted out into the corridor. Satisfied that the turbolift was disabled, he moved on. Now the only way anyone could move through the facility was through the ancient stair well. He wondered if they would even remember it was there.

Plotting his route from the turbolift, and remembering where the room was in relation to it, he made his way back through the corridors to the door of the room he had been at. Pistol at the ready, he turned the door handle and threw the door open as hard as he could, taking the three men inside by surprise. He fired three times, and they went down before they had a chance to react. Five left to go, he thought.

He came into the room quickly and closed the door, fumbling with the ancient lock that somehow still worked to secure the door and keep the others in the underground bunker from using the same tactic he had just used. He figured he had all of a few minutes before they started pounding on the door, about fifteen seconds after that before they cut out the door handle with an energy pistol.

The men had been standing around a large black box which was sitting on some kind of a lab table. The box was smooth except for some blinking lights and several red crystals which seemed to be embedded in its corners. He recognized them as sangraal crystals.

"Okay Daniel, I'm here. I'm pretty sure you are too. How do I get this thing open without it hurting you?" He said out loud, but he only got silence as a response.

"Damn." He swore. "I don't have the time for this. Zelda might be able to figure this box out in a few minutes, but I sure can't."

He stood back from the box and pointed his pistol at it. "I sure hope this doesn't set off the red crystals on this thing, but it's all I've got." He set the beam to as high a power as he could and fired at the box, trying to cut it into pieces.

Deep gashes appeared, and several of the crystals popped and exploded as he bathed the thing back and forth with intense blue plasma. Finally after a few second of this, the box fell to pieces and a shimmering form of golden energy emerged from inside to hover over the table.

"Daniel?" Link asked.

The energy being coalesced into a recognizable face and human shape. "Yeah, Link. It's me."

"You good now? Can you handle these amateurs on your own?" Link asked.

"Yeah. I've got a pretty good idea of how to deal with them. You'll want to use your linking book before I do." Daniel responded. "Don't worry about leaving it here. I'll take care of it."

"What about Zelda?" Link finally asked. "You know she's the reason why I came here in the first place. We both need your help."

"I don't know what to tell you, Link. I know why you came looking for me, but I can only unblock your own mind. I can't do anything about Zelda's when she's in a completely different reality. I can follow you with the linking book after I'm done here with Section Thirty One's schemes, but your mothers may not let me interfere with her there." Daniel told him. "And I need to act soon to keep them from capturing me again, or any of the Others."

"What did they want with you?" Link asked.

"They're trying to figure out ascension. And they wanted to try and access the knowledge I possess as an ascended being. I can't let that happen. No mortal is capable of handling that responsibly." Daniel answered. "My friend, Zelda's got about three weeks. I can unblock your mind and make it possible for you to reach ascension again, but you've got to do the rest of it on your own. I can help you start the path, but I can't walk it for you. If you can reach ascension on your own, then you can help Zelda in the same way. That's the best I can do right now. If the Others don't prevent me, I'll try and make it into Hyrule to try and help you more."

"Yeah, I understand." Link said. "If that's the best you can do I'll take it."

Daniel reached out a glowing fingertip and touched Link's wrinkled forehead. "It's done." Daniel told him. "Now go!"

Link took the book out of his coat pocket, flipped it open to the back panel and set his hand to it. Within seconds he had dematerialized out of existence in that world, letting the book fall to the floor.

Daniel picked up the book and held it protectively, as he focused on the rest of what had been his home for so many years. But all good things must come to an end, and this place would have to as well. He searched out the old explosive charges which had been part of the original self destruct mechanism. They had all been disconnected as he had expected, but Starfleet's covert intelligence group had been sloppy. They had left them in place. "Link was right." Daniel smirked. "These guys are amateurs."

The region was hit by a massive earthquake which Federation scientists couldn't later explain. There had never been any fault lines running through the Cheyenne Mountain area. All they could say for certain was that the quake originated deep under the mountain and lasted for up to thirty seconds.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Malon's white marble tomb stood in the royal cemetery where it had been for more than two centuries. The caretakers of the cemetery had done their job well, Link thought, as he looked the grave site over. It was decorated with the winged triforce seal of the royal family, and had a carved image relief of the influential and powerful queen who had ruled in the place of her sister.

There were no flowers planted now, but he had been told that the gardeners placed orange, yellow, and white flowers of every kind during the late spring to honor the ancestral queen. "She would have liked that." He had mused to himself upon hearing it.

He had never seen Malon's tomb before, not like this anyways. He had, of course, seen pictures of it in school and in the history books he had studied when he was a kid. Before he knew who he was, he had always felt a kind of sadness at seeing it, and a connection he could never explain. When he finally understood and remembered the connection, he had found reasons not to visit the grave of his former wife from another lifetime. Living in a completely different province hundreds of miles away helped a lot.

His trip back to Castleton from the Sacred Grove had been a somber one, and lonely as he had been given plenty of time to think. The R.H.M.G. guardsman who drove him up the highway kept to himself, and Link had been forced to face the position he was in. "Ascend on my own, or we both cease to exist." He said to himself more than once, trying to come to terms with it.

Now he stood in front of the tomb of another woman he had loved deeply, and he knew he would never see her again. He had come here first before going to the hospital without really knowing why. All of this life for him he had wanted to leave that other life, that other family, in the past where it belonged up until now and it kept intruding in his current life whether he wanted it to or not.

He wondered what his "son" Talon thought every time he looked at his mother's two hundred plus year old grave. The man hadn't even been permitted to attend her funeral because of the punishment Zelda had inflicted on him. Ironically, it was a punishment which had eventually served to save all of them and Hyrule from an evil none of them could have anticipated. Did Talon remember his mother's soft flame colored hair? Her firm but gentle hands? Did he remember the steel in her spine? Or the warmth in her smile?

Link found himself remembering all of those things and more and he realized that he had never mourned Malon. He had never really been given the chance to come to terms with her death as a mortal man. He had died and ascended long before her, and she had died an old but fulfilled woman. Funnily enough, he remembered her death from when he was ascended. But one tended to experience those kinds of events differently when you were a being of pure energy than you did with flesh, blood, and a heart to pump it.

"I'm sorry it's taken me so long to come and see you, Malon." He said, addressing the tomb. He knew she wasn't there anymore. Whether or not there was something besides ascension after life, he didn't know. In his considerable, and unusual, life Link had encountered (and fought) many creatures and spirits that had been from beyond the grave, but he had never personally been given the chance to find out. From all of his experiences though, he knew that stranger things were possible.

"You knew it was complicated with me before, and that really hasn't ever changed. I don't know where you are now, but I hope you're happy there." A tear began to form in his eye. "You'd be proud of Talon now. He's every bit the king you hoped at one time he would be."

His thoughts went back to that lifetime, the last lifetime he had lived almost three centuries before. "You know I never said goodbye when you finally took sick and they couldn't cure you. I was always watching over you, but I never said goodbye, and I never..." The tears began to flow more readily. "I should have been there, Malon. I should have led you to ascension when I had the chance, and I didn't, and I'm sorry."

The old rancher just stood there, tears stinging his eyes as he finally let them go. They flowed freely down his cheeks as he remembered her.

"She wouldn't have wanted it at the end." Came a familiar voice, so much like Link's own.

Link didn't turn around. "Why?" He asked. "Why wouldn't she have wanted eternal life?"

"I spoke with her, shortly before she died." Came the king's response. "She came to see me, you know."

"Once a week, I remember the visits." Link told his son who was older than he was. "I was aware of them. At times I was with her when she came to visit you."

"But not for her last visit." Talon said, not as a question.

"No. I couldn't." Link told him, trying to find the words. "I couldn't watch... I mean, I had a hard time seeing her like..."

"Seeing her like that." Talon finished for him. "So did I." He said. "I told her not to attempt the journey again after that, for her own sake. She was so frail by then."

"And yet still so strong." Link added.

"Always. The ministers underestimated her at first, much to their detriment. Even in the end, she wielded her words and wisdom like you wielded your sword. She was every bit my aunt's equal on the throne. She is the reason why Hyrule's civilization exists as it does today." Talon told him.

"I know." Link told him. "I just couldn't face..." Then he gestured to the white tomb. "I couldn't face this." He said, trying to dry his eyes and face with his sleeve. "It was two hundred years before I was born, and it might as well have been yesterday for me." He then asked, "What did she say? Why wouldn't she have wanted me to lead her to ascension?"

"She said she didn't want to come between you and my Lady in the eternal realm like she had in the mortal one. In the end, she loved and believed in the both of you so strongly that she didn't want to continue if it meant coming between the Hero and the Princess for eternity." Talon said, his voice sober.

"Did Hylia try?" Link asked, finally turning to face the former sage turned sovereign.

"I don't know. I've never attempted to find out. It's matter that would be best answered by asking her." Talon responded. "Gaepora and Daphnes are with her right now. They've been asking where you are."

Link nodded in acknowledgment. "How did you find me?"

"The guardsman who drove you works for me, remember? I told him to contact me directly when you returned from Earth. When you asked to come to the palace instead of the hospital, all I had to do was ask which direction you had gone." He explained. Then he asked, "This is your first time visiting her tomb in this life, isn't it?"

"Yes." Link's voice cracked from emotion. "It's my first time in any life."

"There was another reason why she didn't want to follow you in ascension, even if it was offered to her." Talon told him.

"What was that?" Link asked.

"She had moved on." Talon told him. "She had let go of her husband, my father, who had died in that lifetime, and embraced the living man who was still there to love and care for her. She didn't want to enter the eternal realm without him."

"Oliver." The old man said. "He was a good man, I remember."

"Yes, he was. And a good father for both my brother and I." Talon told him. He could have put a great deal of emotion, and accusation for those missing years when Link hadn't been there in his voice, but he didn't. Instead, it was a statement of fact, devoid of any sentiment.

Images ran through Link's mind. They were fuzzy images, but he could remember watching the devoted military man as he played the surrogate father for his two boys, being their when Link couldn't be. Oliver always said it was a promise he had made to him, and he never once broke it.

"Because I wasn't there. Because I had to put the needs of Hyrule above the needs of my own family." Link told him. "Just like I always did."

"None of us ever faulted you for that." Talon told him. "It was..."

"The reason why I was born. Again, and again, and again..." Link's voice became harder and angrier each time he said "again." "Every time I had to lose everything which mattered to me, every time I had to face nightmare after nightmare, every time I had to risk everything and sacrifice everything..." Tears came to his eyes again. "I lost you and your brother to Oliver. He was a good man, but I should have been there for you and your mother. I should have been there... Do you know, Talon, how many families I lost like that? How many times I had a wife and children only to be called away and die so that Hyrule wouldn't be overrun? Do you know that, to this day, I still have nightmares about things which happened to me over a thousand years ago? Did you know that I could barely remember my own name, my first name from when I was first born and raised ten thousand years ago?" He had realized it, but rivers began to flow down his cheeks again. "Did you know that every time you fell and Oliver comforted you, it broke my heart that I couldn't be there to do it? I couldn't interfere in the mortal lives of my own family? And it has broken my heart hundreds of times, with hundreds of boys that I called my sons." His voice was so filled with emotion that he could barely get the words out.

Talon's own eyes were tearing up as he said, "I'm sorry, father."

"I don't want to do this any more Talon." Link told him. "I found Daniel. He removed the block from my mind, but that was all he could do. He said I was going to have to go the rest of the way on my own, and the truth is that I don't know if I want to take the risk that I'll have to go through this again. But if I don't find a way to ascend on my own, then what happens to Zelda? If I die and finally cease, I condemn Zelda to a final death as well, and I can't do that either. So, do you see my problem? I have to ascend whether I want to or not. Because if I don't, we all lose Zelda forever, and I can't do that. But the truth is, I don't want to go on like this. The truth is, the darkness within me doesn't stop when I ascend it just goes on until I reincarnate again, and again, and it doesn't end." His voice began to plead with his ancient son. "I don't know what to do, Talon. I'm so, so tired. And the truth is, when I was gone I remembered the first time I ascended." His voice lowered a bit as he confessed, "I couldn't do it on my own the first time. Hylia had to help me through it when I was dying. So, that's it then. I have to do this for Zelda's sake. But I needed her to do it to begin with, and every other time it was virtually assured to keep the "back-up plan" in place. If my mother is expecting me to do it again on my own without help, then as of right now, both Zelda and I are as good as in the tomb forever. I can't do this, Talon. I was hoping Daniel would see his way to do it for me, or at least come back with me to help out Zelda. But its come down to just me, and for so many reasons, I can't do it."

The old man just stood there, weeping as he talked. His voice become raw with all of the pent up despair, pain, frustration, and raw emotion that he had held inside for so long. It was everything he had wanted to say to someone for so long, and had been unable to verbalize to anyone because of the role he had been forced to play in Hyrule's destiny.

Talon said nothing in response. He could say nothing as the tears began to flow down his own face as well. He had been forced to spend hundreds of years in contemplation and reflection of his own sins and pain, and had finally reconciled and made peace with himself and his past decades ago, but he came to realize that his father had never been allowed to. Perhaps these last forty five years were the first time he had been allowed to just live as a normal Hylian in his entire existence. He didn't blame his father for not wanting that to end, or to not want to return to the realm of possibly running the risk of going through it all over again. He wouldn't have wanted it either. Not for anything.

His father put his hands to his face and his weeping became sobbing as the old man's body became wracked with great tremors and waves of emotion as it all burst forth. Ten thousand years of emotional trauma spilled out of him, and Talon's own heart broke as he heard his father's cries.

The king of Hyrule stepped forward and put his arms around the old man and held him close to his chest, and Link returned Talon's embrace as he continued to sob. And the two just stood there, son comforting father before the tomb of the woman that had been the connection between them both through her love for them both.

When he could speak again, Link said through a hoarse and painful voicebox, "I can't do this again, son. I just can't. But I don't have a choice. Zelda doesn't have a choice. And so I need your help, son. I can't do this on my own, but maybe with your help, we can save her together." He told him.

Talon kissed the top of his father's head and said, "You and I then, father." He hugged him close, his eyes still moist. "You and I then."

Zelda's eyes were closed, her mind relaxed and calm. It had been a very long time, but as Talon had been guiding her through some meditations, the silent rhythm of her own breathing, the beat of her heart, the ever present now became the focus of her mind as she worked on working through her own past pain, failures, and attachments. The practice, though not used by her for decades or even centuries perhaps, had come back to her willingly and naturally as she lay in her hospital bed under Talon's minor tutelage.

Her sons and their families had all come to visit with her the night before, though now it was just Gaepora who watched over her as Talon had left to check on Link she knew, and Daphnes had gone to get food for himself and his brother that afternoon. It was good for her to see them, even though it had only been a few months since the last time they had come out to the house in Ordon.

"Mother?" She heard Gaepora's voice in the void of her mind that she had retreated to. It was a place she hadn't visited in a long time, but she found it as quiet and peaceful as she always had before. His voice, however much she loved it, was a startling and unwelcome intrusion.

"Mother?" The voice called out again, and she began to lose her peaceful focus as she began to return back from the void into her conscious mind, aware of the world and her senses around her.

"I'm fine, Gaepora." She said, opening her eyes.

"Your heart rate was slowing down on the monitors. I didn't know if I should call a healer or not." He explained.

"It's supposed to slow down." She responded, a little annoyed. Gaepora had been present when Talon explained it. "And before you mention it, yes, my brain activity was supposed to change as well."

"According to the monitors your EEG frequency readings went down to one and a half hertz. I'm no doctor, but that's getting close to coma, mom." Gaepora told her, concerned.

"It's still not low enough for what I need it to be if I'm going to do this, Gaepora." She told him. "It needs to be between zero point one to zero point nine hertz for me to reach ascension."

"And how do you know that?" Gaepora asked. "I didn't hear his majesty say anything about that."

How did I know that? She wondered. She knew the fact was true, but she couldn't remember where from. But she knew she did remember it. "I remembered it from before." She finally told him.

Gaepora was silent at that, and just looked at her with concern and fear in his eyes. The look in his eyes made her feel small, helpless, and weak.

"Stop looking at me like that, Gaepora." She told him sharply. "I'm never been as frail as you seem to think I am now."

"You're dying in a hospital bed, mom." Gaepora told her. "What should I be thinking?"

"You should be thinking that the woman you're looking at led legions of Hylian soldiers into battle over a thousand years before you were born." She said matter of factly.

"If you say so, mom." Gaepora said in a humoring tone of voice. That didn't help Zelda's mood.

"Now you listen to me, boy," she said, sitting up and looking him in the eye, using the same tone of voice she would use when he was ten years old and trying to sass her, "I have lived and died over and over again for the last ten thousand years. I have faced pain and terrors the likes of which you have never imagined. I have commanded armies. I have ruled kingdoms. I have brought nations together, and I have led legions to reduce them to rubble in the name of the greater good. I have stared into the face of Demise himself and forced him to submit at the point of a sword. So don't you dare presume to sass or disrespect me because I'm lying here in this hospital bed hooked up to this damned machine! Am I clear?" Her voice became more steely and hardened, rising with each word as she wielded them like a blade against her son's condescension. Then, seeing the pained look in his own eyes, she relaxed and sweetened her voice a little and said, "My son, I love you more than you know. If you really are concerned about me, then you will let your father and I do what we have to even if you don't understand it. Okay?"

Her son, an experienced military man in his own right, backed down at the dangerous, ancient look in his mother's eyes. It was one he had only seen in flashes before, but now found himself on the direct receiving end of. "I'm sorry, mom." He said, sincerely. "I'm just worried, and," he let out an exhausted breath, "I don't understand any of this. How can I? How could I possibly understand the idea of living hundreds of lifetimes, or going through half of what you and dad have told us you've gone through? When I hear the sages or the religious priests talk about the exploits of the Hero and the Princess, it always sounds like they're talking about someone else. It always sounds like its something that happened to other people. Do you understand why Daphnes and I have always had a hard time with this?"

"I wish I could." She answered honestly. "I wish I could have had that luxury, but Demise chose not to give it to us."

"There. That's just what I'm talking about, mom. You say that as though it was some part of our family history that's within living memory. You say it like it happened only a few years ago; a decade at most. Mom, do you understand that ten thousand years ago isn't within living memory? It's not even comprehensible to my brother and I." Gaepora told her.

"It's within my living memory." Zelda told him sourly.

"I don't want to do this mom. I don't want to argue with you and dad about this. Neither does Daphnes. But you've got to understand how hard it is for us to accept it. I know it doesn't bother Malona, and our kids love yours and dad's stories, but neither Daphnes or I can come to grips with it." He told her.

"So what do you want me to do then, Gaepora? Just die here like a good little grandma because what your father and I are doing to try and save ourselves makes our history too real for you?" She snapped at him.

"No, mom, that's not what I said..." Gaepora tried to defend himself.

But she was too irritated to hold herself back. "I'm sorry if the unusual nature of our lives offends you and your brother, Gaepora. But I can't change any of it, and if we had made different decisions neither you, nor your brother, nor even Hyrule itself would exist today. No. We're not a normal family. We never have been. Get over it, boy. These last forty five years are as close to normal as your father and I have ever had it and we've been thankful for every last second. The truth is that we've been a little too thankful for it, and tried our damnedest to enjoy it for as long as we could. That's why we're both in the position we're in now. Because we ignored what we both knew was coming. That's why your father went off to another world in another reality to find help, because the only person who could have still been 'alive' who might be able and willing to help isn't even here in our world. That's why I was lying here only moments ago trying to relearn the mental practices I need to be able to escape this dying, mortal form. This is the reality we have lived with for ten thousand years! I'm sorry if it's new to you, but I don't have the luxury right now of catering to your disbelief! And neither does your father." She finished.

"Okay." He said after a deliberating pause.

"Okay?" She repeated.

"Okay." He confirmed. "Whatever you and dad need me to do, whether I understand it or not, I'll do." He told her sincerely. "I love you both, mom. And I'll be here for you. Whatever you need from me, you've got."

"Okay." She said again, accepting it. "Right now we both need your support. Meditating in order to ascend can be difficult under the best of circumstances, and your grandmothers have put some kind of an impediment in place. Without more help, I can only take this so far."

"So, if our..." he had trouble saying the word, but he got it out, "grandmothers put a block in place, what about just asking them to remove it?"

"And if it were that simple, we wouldn't be having this conversation, now would we, my son?" She asked, her voice bleeding sarcasm. "They won't answer us."

Gaepora thought for a few moments. He then asked, "Would they talk to me? Or Daphnes and I? How do we get a hold of them?"

"They are already aware of our conversation." She told him. "Being ascended means near omniscience. You're aware of almost everything going on in your world."

"What about paying a visit to their Sages?" Gaepora asked, brainstorming.

"My mother's temple is under lake Hylia. Farore's is in the Kokiri Forest. Neither destination is for the faint of heart." She told him. "Your father has been in them many times in the past. Every time they have tested him to the point of nearly killing him. You both have families, my son." She tried to impress upon him the seriousness of what he was suggesting.

"You asked for my support, mom. I don't know how else to help but to 'do' something. Daphnes is the same way. It's driving both of us crazy just sitting here unable to do anything. There's too much of dad in the both of us. At least going to the temples would give us something we could do to help." He told her.

"My boy." She said, taking her hand and stroking his hair lovingly.

"I'm going to find a way to help you, mom." He told her. "I promise. Even if I have to drag Farore back here and make her help you."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Gaepora stood alone looking beyond at the archway of trees. His brother Daphnes should just be reaching lake Hylia now and negotiating with the Zoras for entry into their temple. Just then, as his eyes took in the shadowed forest beyond the archway, he thought his brother had gotten the better end of this deal since all he needed to get there was diving equipment and a Zora made re-breather..

No one in their right mind had gone into the Kokiri forest alone for hundreds of years, and then it was only in the stories of the sacred legends. Then, the only "sane" person who had gone in and come back out was, according to his parents, his own father. There was a reason why it had adopted the name "Lost Woods," and so the rest of Hyrule studiously avoided it, leaving the Kokiri and skull children in peace, which is how they tended to like it, as he understood it. The last time a team of guardsmen went in had been forty five years before, and that had been during a time of crisis.

Those who entered the Lost Woods without knowing how to navigate the forest trails never came back out. There was something "extra-dimensional" about the forest that couldn't be explained or mapped logically. As with the safegaurds on the other temples, this enchantment was put into place by Farore herself to ensure that the temple would remain unmolested. Only the Hero, the Princess, and apparently the Demon King had ever been able to successfully navigate it. And, although he supposedly shared the blood of two of these legendary figures, Gaepora was none of these.

His mother had told him the secret of navigating the forest. "Just listen for the Sage's song," she had said, "when the forest starts to become quiet, then you're heading in the wrong direction." It had sounded so simple there in his mother's hospital room the day before, when he hadn't been staring into a darkened forest with winter coming on.

He zipped his green and brown, wool lined field jacket up to his neck and pulled the cowl over his head as the temperatures began their descent towards freezing. Under the jacket was a steel and carbon composite breast and back plate over a long sleeve pullover shirt to protect his torso. He checked the straps on the field pack on his back to make sure it was secure. Strapped under the backpack was a standard issue, three foot combat ready blade. A sidearm was in a holster secured against his hip, and the strap of a standard issue, fifty round assault rifle was slung around his neck and shoulders. Strapped to his right arm was a rounded, enchanted composite metal shield that would stop the rounds from most small firearms, and give him good protection from edged weapons if it came down to the close quarters sword combat his father was famous for. This shield was small enough and light enough for him to not have to remove it to use his arm for other things.

He had essentially been dropped off there at the entrance to the forest by a guard captain in an all terrain truck three hours after they left Castleton. There were no paved roads, gravel roads, or even dirt paths which led here, and the all-terrain feature of the truck was tested sorely just to get him this far, but once they arrived he was on his own. His mother had been very clear about that.

"No one else can go with you." She had told him and his brother. "You are my sons, and the sons of the Hero. You are also from the bloodlines of the royal family, the guardians of the temples will understand and respect that, but only you may enter. No one else." She was adamant about that. The temples held a special relationship with the members of the royal family, but anyone else entered at the risk of their lives, or worse.

"Well, if dad could do it..." He told himself as he started walking for the archway. "I'm either the Hero's son, or I'm not." He said as he passed through the autumn colored trees that marked the boundaries of the Lost Woods.

Once he did, he immediately looked back. Hyrule Field was still there as he laughed at himself. Nothing had changed from the few feet he had walked. "Well, what did I expect?" He said to no one in particular. He turned back around and looked at the scene in front of him.

To Gaepora's surprise there was a slightly discernible dirt footpath which led into the woods. He couldn't hear any music yet. He hoped that wasn't a bad sign. Maybe you only started hearing it when you were deeper in. The path itself looked a little like an underused animal trail. Not seeing or hearing any other clues as to what direction to head in from there, he started along the trail.

The trees around him seemed to get thicker and more tightly packed together the farther he walked. Every once in a while he would check behind him or mark a tree with some chalk to indicate what direction he was heading. He was able to keep the archway from Hyrule field in view like this for about ten or fifteen minutes until the trail curved and led down into a small ravine where there was a wood and rope bridge suspended over about a twenty or thirty foot drop. The afternoon sunlight spilled through the canopy of the forest trees and left dappled shadows across the ravine from what he could see.

"Well, so far so good." He said. "I'm beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about."

He set one foot on the bridge and tested it. It looked old, but still very sturdy, and it took the weight of his booted foot without him feeling any weakness in the wood at all. Soon, he was striding across it, the old bridge bouncing a little as he walked.

Gaepora kept his eyes and ears open and kept looking all around him. The old forest seemed almost asleep it was so quiet and still. It didn't have the eery feel of dead silence, but of the quiet slumber of minute sounds and shuffling. There was a peace that had spread over the forest which he hadn't ever experienced in the woods around his parents' property in Ordon.

He reached the other side of the bridge and, turning around as he walked to see the bridge and path behind him, he kept going forward into the cool shadows of the deeper forest as the trees, roots, branches and foliage became even denser around him and formed a kind of corridor which led in only one direction through the woods.

Around him, a warm, familiar breeze blew through the trees, and he thought he heard the sounds of playful, whispered laughter around him. He stopped his advance to listen again, slowly turning around three hundred and sixty degrees again his eyes scanning the trees and path around him, but there was no one there that he could see.

He came around again and proceeded to walk forward until he nearly tripped over what he thought was a tree root. Except, the tree root said, "Oww! Hey, what's the big idea?!"

The soldier immediately looked down at his feet. Standing there was what looked for all the world like a Hylian boy of about ten years old with flame red hair and an annoyed look on his face. He wore a green tunic, cap, and trousers which reminded Gaepora immediately of the Hero's traditional dress. "Why don't you look where you're going?" The boy said.

"I'm sorry. I didn't expect anyone to be standing there." Gaepora said slowly, assessing the "boy." He had been certain there was no one there less than a minute before.

"Well, it would help if you used your eyes!" The "boy" said sharply. "Or are they too far up from the ground? Sheesh!"

Gaepora thought for a minute, and then said, "I'm trying to reach the Temple of Forest. I'm on an errand from the Princess Zelda." If the boy in front of him was what Gaepora thought he was, then he should at least recognize his mother's name and title. Everyone else did. Whether or not he kept up with current politics was more doubtful.

"The Princess?" The boy asked, a skeptical look in his eye as he looked the General up and down. "Prove it." He told him.

His mother had warned them both to expect some kind of challenge to their "credentials," and that their standard issue ID tags wouldn't suffice. She had instructed the both he and his brother to carry a small ocarina or flute. He had never been great at playing either, but the melody his mother instructed them to memorize was simple enough. Gaepora pulled out a small silvery ocarina which he had stuffed into a front pocket of his field jacket, and began to play the six notes of the "lullaby" his mother had sung them when they were little.

"You know the sacred song of the royal family?!" The boy's eyes grew wide as he stared at Gaepora like he'd just now really looked at him. "Hey, I know you!"

"You do?" Gaepora asked, surprised.

"Yeah..." He said slowly, scratching his head. "It was a long time ago, I think. When we had all that trouble with the monsters in the forest. You reminded me of someone I used to know." He said. "Gee, you've gotten a lot older since the last time you were here."

Gaepora didn't deny it, but on a hunch decided to try and go with it. "Yeah, I'm back, and I need to get into the Temple. Can you help me out?"

The boy scratched his head and looked closely at him again. "Well, I guess you did help us out before. And you know the song of the royal family, so I guess you're okay..." He thought some more. "But I thought you'd already been to the temple. How come you don't know the way, huh?"

He was sure of it now. The "boy" was a kokiri, one of the forest "fairy" people for whom these woods were named. Though very real, the reclusive mysterious people were the stuff of legends themselves. Very few living souls in the rest of Hyrule had ever seen a kokiri before as they very rarely ever left the village in their woods. Gaepora thought quick on his feet, "Well, like you said. It's been a long time since I've been there. And you know this forest. It always gets me all turned around." He tried to put on a convincing face with his explanation.

"Yeah, it does that with everyone but us." The boy told him. "Alright. I'll take you to the entrance to the Lost Woods. You can find your way from there I assume?" He asked, looking Gaepora in the eye.

"Yeah, I should be able to," Gaepora said. "Just follow the music like before. Thanks..." Gaepora was searching for the Kokiri's name. He knew for certain he had heard it before.

"Mido!" The Kokiri told him, his voice raised. "Sheesh, you do have a bad memory, don't you? It wasn't 'that' long ago."

Only a thousand years, give or take, Gaepora thought to himself in wonder.

The entry cave of Nayru's temple was quiet except for the constant drip of water from stalagtites overhead that seemed to have been growing for millennia or more. It would have been pitch black except for torches that burned brightly against the walls. It was damp in the cave, but oddly enough it wasn't really cold as Daphnes expected when he emerged from the water filled corridor which led up from Lake Hylia's bottom. It was actually quite warm and moist.

"I guess that makes sense," Daphnes said to himself as he looked around, thinking of the water born race that built this place.

He had never had the privilege of visiting a Sacred Temple before, much more the temple of his supposed grandmother. When his brother told him of his plan, his first reaction was to assume the family insanity was contagious and Gaepora had lost his mind as well.

"First dad has a psychotic breakdown and disappears on some gods forsaken wild cucco chase, and now you want to go traipsing around sacred temples looking for gods who won't answer when they're called in the first place?" Daphnes had almost yelled at his younger brother. "It's bad enough his majesty keeps up this delusion, but you too?"

"Mom wants our support, Daphnes." Gaepora had told him. "I don't really believe any of this either, but she wants and needs our support through this."

"That's why we need to stay right here with her!" Daphnes had shot back.

"And do what? Watch her meditate? Listen to her get angry at us when we don't buy everything she's saying about her past?" Gaepora had said. "If nothing else, you and I can go and at least try to make contact with the Sages and see if they've got any messages for Mom and Dad from the goddesses."

"You want us to risk our lives for the sole purpose of playing along with her delusions?" Daphnes asked in disbelief.

"Members of the royal family have been making regular visits to the temples for centuries without running into trouble. It's just a matter of knowing how to get past all of the enchantments that are set up to protect them. We go in, talk to the sages, and then come back and tell mom what, if anything they said." Gaepora seemed to have it all worked out.

Daphnes had chewed on it for a few minutes before he asked, "And what if the sages don't have anything, or anything positive?"

"Then we come up with something to tell her to ease her mind." Gaepora told him.

"We lie to her?" Daphnes had asked his brother.

"She's on her death bed, Daphnes. Do you really want her going into the shadows believing that her own goddess mother abandoned her to die?" Gaepora asked him. "I don't."

After that, it was a matter of getting special permission from Talon himself, and then he found himself being driven out to Lake Hylia with wet gear. That was after, of course, his mother had made sure they had every note of a lullaby she used to sing them pitch perfect with a couple of ocarinas. Yeah... That happened.

So, now Daphnes stood in Zora made wet combat gear at the entry to the temple, specially made tactical boots with flipper extensions leaving oddly shaped wet foot prints against the soft wet sand of the cave floor. He supposed there were worse things than a quick trip to a resort town and a diving session in order to help his mom out.

To be sure, he didn't enter the temple unarmed. His wetsuit concealed a carbon composite breatplate, and he carried a sword on his back the blade of which was specially formulated and forged for water based combat. Firearms don't do well when having to fight underwater, but he did carry a sidearm which had been specially designed for wet environments, and an assault rifle with spare clips. Did he expect combat here in a religious structure? Not really. But his majesty had insisted, and as he was once a sitting Sage who knew what the inside of a temple could be like, Daphnes had taken precautions.

As he looked towards the inner door which led into the temple proper, he voiced the thought that ran through his mind, "Should the Sage know I'm here by now?" He would have expected some kind of a greeting or something once he had made it even this far. From what he had been told, Sages didn't generally tolerate intruders. Something began to feel wrong, and the rifle he had carried in belted to his gear appeared in his hands.

As he walked across the sand, the floor around him hardened into weathered, slippery rock and he took more pains to be sure of his footing as the floor became even more uneven. The flames from the torches (who kept those lit, anyway?) cast shadows against the walls that danced and moved around him.

As he neared the door, he rounded a rock outcropping that he realized he was going to have to climb up on to reach the alcove where the door was placed. It looked like there had been a nice, useful set of stone stairs that had reached up to it at one time that some how found themselves smashed over time.

He turned three hundred and sixty degrees slowly to check his surroundings again before he attempted to climb. The last thing he wanted was a nasty surprise turning up while he was preoccupied with not breaking his neck on a slick rock. Overhead he could see possible targets for a set of clawshots, the unique device that allowed a person to shoot a grappling claw attached to a chain at a target and then be dragged by the chain as it powerfully rewound back into its housing, mounted at convenient points along the walls. Unfortunately, clawshots weren't standard issue R.H.M.G. gear. The only working clawshots he actually knew of, however, were housed in Hyrule Castle in the room which was magically sealed as off limits to all but the Hero. As far as he knew, his father hadn't set foot in it since before he and his siblings had been born.

"Wish Guard R. and D. had been able to replicate those. A pair would have come in handy right about now." He said to himself as he continued to look around the chamber and listen carefully for possible threats.

Not seeing anything, he slung his rifle back over his shoulder and proceeded to climb the rocks up towards the door. They were slick with some kind of slimy growth as he tried to get a good foothold. The tread on his boots had been augmented with small, rust resistant metal spikes for better traction and eventually he was able to get up and onto the rocks close to where the old staircase had broken off. It looked like once upon a time he might have needed to jump it, but some past trespasser had gotten the bright idea of causing one of the stalactites overhead to fall and create a kind of stepping stone over to the ledge. He briefly, and flippantly, wondered if that had been his dad in a past life, then he shoved the idea out of his head. "No way I'm going to get caught up in that nonsense." He told himself as he crossed over to the door's alcove. "It's bad enough I'm here as it is."

Rifle back in his hands, he came over to the door and studied it. There was no handle. There didn't appear to be any hinges. In fact, except for the fact that it was clearly made out of a separate slab of some kind of jeweled metal set into the wall, it didn't really look like a functioning door at all.

"Okay. So now what do I do, just lift it up?" He asked, looking over the "door." In the center was set a symbol. An upside down triangle with three solid circles, one at the top and two at the sides. "Nayru's seal." He said contemplating it. On a hunch, he pressed his left hand against the triangle. Mechanized sounds began to click and clang from the door's frame and the metal slab slid upwards so that there was an open portal deeper into the temple.

"Now, let's find the Sage." He said as he stepped through the door.

Link sat alone in the royal family's chapel in the private wing of Hyrule Castle. Talon had spent some time helping his father with breathing and meditation techniques to get him started back on the path to ascension, and then he had left him alone in the quiet space with orders to the castle guardsmen outside that he was not to be disturbed, and was to be given anything he requested, no matter what the request might be.

The sacred space held a few pew benches and an altar upon which sat images of the Triforce and the three goddesses in gold and silver relief. To either side of the altar stood white marble images of the Hero and the Princess Stained glass windows depicting artists' rending of scenes from Link and Zelda's past lives and adventures rendered the afternoon sunlight into a rainbow of colors which were splashed across the wooden pews. In between the windows were smaller icons of Hyrule's more minor deities.

He couldn't escape the irony that this chapel was what the being represented on the altar had studiously wanted to avoid. There had been a reason why the "Legend of Zelda" had been concealed by the royal family from the common people until a few hundred years ago. None of Hyrule's gods had wanted to be worshiped or prayed to. They wouldn't have interfered at all in the mortal planes of existence if it weren't for Demise and his crusade to enslave them.

No, this chapel and the religion it represented was the result of Malon not wanting their sacrifices to go unknown and unrecognized. She couldn't let go after he and Zelda had died within a day of one another. She made the Legend of Zelda, the temples, the Sages, the Triforce, all of it public knowledge and encouraged the public adoption of the religion she built around them. Suddenly the faith and belief of the people in the gods she promoted began pouring into Hyrule's ascended beings giving them power and responsibility they had neither asked for nor wanted, while at the same time draining the Hylians themselves of their own innate capability for ascension which had been engineered into them from the beginning by those who had first created them. And all of this happened because he had been forced to choose between being the husband and father his family needed right then, and being the Hero Hyrule had always seemed to need.

His eyes settled on the image of Zelda at the front which stood with arms extended towards the pews, a golden bow in one hand and gold arrows in the other like a benevolent warrior goddess. It was a good likeness and captured his wife's smile well, though he knew Zelda never liked the statue, even before she had fully regained her memories. She had come to fully detest the pretense which came with being royal, and the statue of her as a goddess just tipped it over the edge for her. During their wedding, she had asked to have both his and her statues removed for the ceremony. Eyes were raised, but it was obeyed. No one else in Hyrule, not even Talon, could have gotten away with that request and have it obeyed like she did, he smiled at the memory.

This time it wasn't about Hyrule. It was just about Zelda, the woman he had loved and been bonded to for ten thousand years and hundreds of lifetimes. He didn't have to raise a sword and shield. He didn't have to stare down a dragon, fight a death knight, jump into an abyss, or any other nightmare inducing thing which he had had to do in the past. He just had to sit quietly, be still, and let go of everything and then he could save his wife.

"You have to believe you can do this." This was the first instruction Talon had given him. "That is the most important thing. If you don't believe you can ascend, then you won't be able to. Everything else is meditation and letting go."

The problem was that he 'couldn't' do it before without help. As his mind continued to wander back to that ancient time across the Hylian Sea in what was now known as the ruins of the Great Palace, he had tried. It seemed like he had sat and meditated in his old age until he had developed a rash on his backside from sitting so much. But his physical body remained physical until Hylia returned to him on his deathbed and helped him finish the journey. He had brought this up with his oldest son.

"Then you must discover why. The physical capability exists within you, father." Talon had told him. "Until relatively recently it always had, otherwise you couldn't have ascended and been reborn continuously."

"What would keep me from reaching it?" He had asked the Sage turned king.

"You hadn't let go of something in this mortal life. Ascension requires that you release everything holding you here. You must let go of all of your fears, your guilt, your mortal relationships and attachments, all of these things in order for the process to come to fruition." His son replied as he sat in the pew in the chapel before he had left him.

"So what didn't I let go of?" Link had asked him.

"Only you can answer that, father." Talon responded.

Link asked himself the same question now. "What am I not letting go of?" His eyes caught the statue again as it stared benevolently out into the chapel. His own statue's expression was just as benevolent, if a little more menacing. But it was Zelda's face and image that kept drawing his eye.

And then, slowly, a light began to come on in his mind. "No..." He said aloud. Could it be? If it was, then he was certain that it would seal both his and his wife's fates, but the more he thought about it, the more certain he was that it was true. And if it was true, then irony was a cruel mistress. And what about Hylia so long ago? Ha she really been able to let go of everyone in her life?

"I need to go talk to my wife." He said as he got up from the pew. "I've got something to ask her."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Gaepora emerged from the forest with Mido just around sunset into the Kokiri village. Lamps and lanterns were being lit by what looked like children wearing the same forest green clothes that his short guide was wearing. These forest children turned their heads to look at the strange visitor to their village with a friendly curiosity on their faces, though none of them left off their tasks and approached either him or Mido as he was led into the village. No one he could see looked older than about ten years, though he knew from the sacred stories that they had to be more ancient than some of the trees which surrounded the clearing where their village was. Flying near each one of the ancient forest children was a bright speck of light that shone like a tiny star.

"Fairies." Gaepora said in wonder. He had known they existed in the same way as the Kokiri, though he had never seen one and didn't know of anyone who had. They too were a reclusive people that were seen more and more only rarely by anyone else in Hyrule, and never in the cities. Fairies didn't like being away from nature, and their fountains in particular. But here, watching them dance around the Kokiri they seemed to have a special relationship with them. He watched as one came zooming by to hover over Mido, and then began to speak with him about some matter, though he couldn't quite catch what was said.

Gaepora counted maybe fifteen or twenty "houses" in the village on first glance. Many, if not most of them were built either into the trunks of trees or sitting high in the branches. Mido stopped in front of one of these latter after taking the Hylian general along a small dirt path which ran in between the widely spaced trees. This house was set up high and was only accessible by an old wooden ladder that looked as though it hadn't been used for a long time.

"You remember when I said you reminded me of someone?" Mido asked Gaepora.

"Yeah, why?" He replied.

"Well, this is his house. I never really liked him much because he wasn't really a Kokiri. The girls from our village took him in when he was a baby and he grew up here. And then all the bad stuff started happening when he got big, like the Great Deku Tree dying. I used to think it was all his fault that it happened, but then Saria explained it to me." Mido told him.

"What was this boy's name?" Gaepora asked, not entirely sure where this conversation was going.

"We called him Link 'cause that's what his mom told us to name him before she disappeared." Mido told him.

"Link?" Gaepora asked, his pulse quickening a little.

"Yeah, why?" The Kokiri asked.

"And you think I remind you of him?" Gaepora pressed.

"Yeah, you really do." Mido said, studying his face more closely. "Except you're a lot older. The last time I saw him he looked the same as us, and you're... well, you just look old, but your face looks a lot like his." He then stopped and scrunched up his face as though he was thinking really hard, and then asked, "Are you related to him?"

"Am I related?" Gaepora's mind was reeling from the implications of what the fairy boy had told him. It can't be. It just can't be. His mind wanted to rebel against what his eyes and ears were telling him. But the evidence for all of it was literally staring Gaepora in the face waiting for an answer to his honest, simple question. "I'm honestly not sure." He finally said, unwilling to give in.

"Well, it was a long time ago." Mido said. "Anyways, I just wanted to show the house to you. No one's lived in it for a long time now. The same with Saria's house over there." Mido pointed to another house across the village. "She lives at the temple now."

The temple! Right. "You were going to show me how to get to the temple." He reminded the Kokiri.

"Oh yeah! I forgot! But first you need to go see the Great Deku Tree." Mido told him. "He sent Nali to come and get you." He said pointing at the bright spot of light hovering closely to him.

"The Great Deku Tree?" Gaepora asked, trying to remember all of the mythology his father tried to impart to him, and which he had only half paid any attention to the older he got.

"Don't you know about the Great Deku Tree?" Mido asked, his eyes wide in disbelief. "How could you not know?"

"Like I said, it's been a long time." It was a lame thing to say, but it was all he had at the moment. "Can't you just take me to where the path to the temple begins? I'm kind of in a time crunch." He asked.

Mido's eyes went even wider and a look of total shock came over his face, as he said again, "The Great Deku Tree has summoned you!" As if that should be enough to excuse him from death itself. "Come on. Sheesh!" The Kokiri said in annoyance as he waived for Gaepora to follow him. "How could anyone not know about the Great Deku Tree?!" He started walking towards a path that ran between two high hills at the east end of the village. "He's only the great guardian spirit of the forest!"

Mido's path took them across the village and across a small pond which lay near the middle of the village which he skipped across on stepping stones with ease, but which Gaepora found himself trying to carefully keep from falling into.

The Kokiri finally stopped at the east end of the village and pointed towards a kind of natural corridor which was formed in between two cliff faces. "He's through there." He told him. "Watch out for the Deku Babas, though. They haven't died off for the winter yet."

"Thanks." Gaepora told him, a little annoyed himself, cocking the rifle in his hands as he proceeded along the path. The Kokiri made no attempt to go with him.

"Aren't you coming with me?" The Hylian turned around and asked after he didn't hear any footfalls behind him.

"No." Mido told him, "he summoned you, not me. Sheesh!" As though that should have been obvious.

"Okay then. I guess I'll be back in a little while." He turned around and proceeded onwards, switching on the flashlight which was mounted to the barrel of his rifle to pierce the darkness as he opened up his senses and stepped cautiously, taking the warning about Deku Babas seriously.

He understood what Mido had said about the time of year, and he found himself wishing it was much later in the year. The large carnivorous plants hated cold, and a good frost would kill the buds for the winter. They weren't nearly as common in Hyrule as they used to be, but that didn't make them any less dangerous when one popped up. Being aware of them and looking for the tell tale buds and broad leaves on the ground was a standard part of survival training in the Royal Hyrule Military Guard. They weren't intelligent, or particularly difficult to kill, but if one caught you unaware it could do a lot of damage before you had a chance to react. He knew of a guy once who had been caught by one and had nearly bled to death before the rest of his unit got to him, and it, in time.

Gaepora had asked his survival instructor once if it wouldn't be wise to just carry some weed killer spray with you. His instructor had told him and the rest of the class that would be a great idea if the plants weren't completely impervious to virtually every weed killer available. Nope, in order to really get rid of them you had to destroy the root system of each plant. You could cut the stem, but then the blasted things would just grow back after a day or two. The best strategy when in the field was to just cut the stem, destroy the bud, and don't linger if you don't have to. If they were sitting where you wanted to make camp, you had to plant a grenade on the roots as well.

The earthen corridor was wide enough for two or three grown men to pass through side by side, but that wasn't really wide enough if those plants were lurking in here. Their stems could grow up to six or seven feet tall, and they could move and strike like a viper. They also didn't need to be right side up to grow, having been known to hang down from ceilings, and grow out from walls.

He shone his flashlight ahead on the ground and against the sides of the corridor, looking for the broad leaves which marked a Deku Baba bloom. Sure enough, eight feet in front of him a large bulbous green flower bud sat on the ground amidst broad, yellowish green leaves.

Gaepora raised his rifle and aimed, pressing the trigger just slightly as to cause a thin green beam of light to strike the side of the blossom. The plant didn't react to the light. So much the better as he squeezed the trigger fully a quick couple of times.

The darkness lit up with the fire flashes from his rifle, and the corridor echoed loudly with the weapons thunder as the rounds struck the blossom and broke it apart. "One down." Gaepora said as he scanned the ground and sides again. Not seeing anything immediate, he proceeded forward careful to keep the light on his rifle moving so as not to get caught.

He spied a couple more of the plants on the ground and reduced them both to shredded salad. Another one of them had grown into the side of the corridor where it bent and grew narrow and it's flower bud too was destroyed. He hated wasting rounds on the local flora because of the reality of what he now knew he might face in the Lost Woods, but he didn't want to chance taking his sword to them. The plants could sense your body heat within five feet of the buds and became active.

"How in the world does the royal family get in here to check on the temples so easily?" He asked himself as he took apart a fifth and sixth plant. "They can't have to go through this every time."

He stepped through the vegetable carnage to see an opening at the end of the corridor with the light from his rifle's flashlight. He moved more quickly towards it when he heard a rustling sound behind him. "Oh damn." He swore as he let go of his rifle, drew the sword from his back and spun slashing in the direction of the sound behind him all within a fraction of a second.

The next thing he saw and heard was a bulbous red and green flower bud with teeth jerking reflexively as it fell to the ground, the stem which had just been severed thrashing spasmodically from its leafy base rooted in a small cliff ledge three feet over his head. He kicked the fanged flower hard and it went sailing back down the corridor to die along with its relatives. He let out a relieved breath after he realized he had been holding it, and returned to the opening at the end of the corridor.

The last light of the sun was just beginning to fade as he came upon the clearing of the Great Deku Tree. In the fading light the towering tree stood massive as it dominated the grassy depression in which it sat. Many of its leaves had already fallen in preparation for winter, and those that were left were a brilliant crimson and gold. The tree was easily thirty or forty feet in diameter and it rivaled some skyscraper buildings in Castleton for its height. The lights of fairies flitted among its branches and what leaves remained to it. As he approached, the distinct outline of gargantuan eyes, nose, and mouth took shape and the eyes had been watching the corridor from which he had exited.

"Come, thou son of Link, thee have I been expecting." Boomed a great, deep voice that Gaepora felt as well as heard.

"You have?" Gaepora asked as he approached, crossing the considerable distance down from the natural rocky walls which surrounded the tree's depression in the earth. Great roots gnarled the ground around the tree forming natural platforms to sit or stand, and natural bridges across the depression.

"Methinks thy appearance is much like thy heroic father's when last he came hence." The tree said, his speech archaic, and heavily accented. "I was but a sprout then, born from the seed of my own dying father tree."

"So you were there too," Gaepora asked. "A thousand years ago."

"Was it? Difficult for me to mark is time. The sun riseth, and setteth. The winter cometh and then fadeth again to allow spring and summer to reign for a brief moment of time. It seemeth a long time before. Days, months, years; all come and go so quickly." The Great Deku Tree said. "But methinks I could never forget the face of the man who saved us, and I see his face reborn in thee."

Gaepora felt almost a little dizzy as he tried to wrap his mind around what the tree was telling him. Added on top of that was the fact that a tree was telling him anything, and he almost involuntarily sat down on one of the tree's roots as he tried to bring the conversation back to something that approached comprehensible. "Mido said you wanted to speak with me before I could proceed on to the Temple of Farore."

"Why dost thou wish to enter the Sacred Temple of Forest?" The Great Deku Tree asked. "This is not a task thou undertakest lightly."

Not as lightly as I apparently thought, Gaepora realized. "I have a need to speak with the Sage of Forest." He then added, "it concerns the Princess Zelda."

The tree seemed to deliberate this answer for several minutes, and then replied, "Continue."

He wants me to explain. Gaepora realized. "How do I explain the situation to a huge talking tree? How much of it will he understand?" He asked himself under his breath. Then out loud he said, "The Princess has fallen very ill and is dying."

"That is most unfortunate. My condolences are with her and her family." The Great Deku Tree told him in a sincere tone of voice.

"I hope to speak with the Farore's Sage in order to speak with Farore herself about the matter." He told the tree.

"Thinkest thou the goddess might heal thy princess of her illness?" The tree asked.

"In a way." Gaepora responded. "I hope to enlist the aid of the goddess in..." his explanation faltered as he tried to bring himself to say it and he almost couldn't.

"Yes?" The tree was waiting.

"...in... in helping her return to the realm of the gods where she belongs." He finally finished. It was the first time he had actually said it out loud, and it almost sounded ridiculous to him.

If the tree had eyebrows, they would have been arched in surprise as the entire "face" of the Great Deku Tree shifted to reflect his own disbelief. There was silence as even the bright lights of the fairies seemed to be staring at him incredulously. The discomfort was palpable as he shifted in his seat.

Finally, the tree spoke again. "Thy request is... unusual, son of Link." He then asked, "Why dost thou think the goddess will hear thee better through the ears of the Sage than through her own? Dost thou not believe the goddess heareth thee here just as well as in her temple?"

"The goddess..." Gaepora tried to think through his own argument and it was falling apart, "The goddess has not responded, and the Princess does not have much time left."

"Thou seemeth much disturbed by the death of thy princess to seek the goddess in her own temple. Thou must loveth her very much." The Deku Tree observed.

Yes, I do. Gaepora thought, regardless of all the times she and dad drove me crazy with the impossibility of who they were supposed to be. "She's my mother." He told the tree. "I would do anything for her."

"Still, I have not heard the name of the goddess Zelda before now." The tree said. "And I have lived a very long time."

"She has another name in the heavens, different from the name of her mortal incarnation." Gaepora told him.

"Hmmm." A low rumble hummed across the clearing as he thought. "And what was her name in the heavens?"

"Hylia." Gaepora said.

"Hylia..." The Great Deku Tree said, drawing out the name pensively. "Now that is a name I have heard of. I was not told that she had been reborn." A great weight seemed to come over the tree's face.

"I can't imagine news gets to you quickly here from the outside." Gaepora remarked, thinking of how cut off this forest had been from the outside.

"Apparently not." The tree agreed. "The fairies that come and play in my branches tell me much of what happens outside of this forest, but perhaps they themselves have not much ventured from hence as of late."

"Please, she lay dying as we speak. She is attempting to ascend once more into the realm of the gods, but she needs help. I don't know why Farore, Nayru, and Din aren't responding to any of us. That's why I need to go to the temple, to find out what is going on." Gaepora's voice became pleading.

"Thou needest not my permission to seek the temple, son of Link." The tree told him. "I merely wanted to speak with thee before thou dost, and now I have. Go and seek the goddess in her temple if that is thy quest. The entrance to the Lost Woods is at the top of the hill on the north side of the Kokiri's village."

Gaepora nodded, and then got up from his seat to go. Then a question occurred to him, and he turned back to the Great Deku Tree, "Why did you want to speak with me if not about the temple?"

"I wanted to see if thou wast anything like the boy I knew long ago." The tree told him.

"And am I?" Gaepora asked, curious.

"Oh, yes. Thou art much like thy noble father, son of Link." The Great Deku Tree responded.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

The lizalfos turned and charged the opening door before Daphnes had time to process his surroundings. "What the...?!" The Hylian general shouted in surprise as the lizard warrior launched itself into the air bringing its curved sword up and plunging down with it intending to split the man's head in half..

Daphnes' rifle came up out of reflex and short bursts of rapid fire thundered from the weapon, tearing into the lizalfos' chest and shredding the leather armor meant to protect it. The body of the creature was dead before it hit the stone of the bridge Daphnes found himself on. The soldier kept his weapon trained on the creature in the event it moved again, his muscles taught, and his senses heightened from the attack.

"You're not supposed to be here." He said matter of factly as he kicked at the creature with his webbed boot. "You're not supposed to be anywhere. You're not supposed to exist at all." He told the dead body. They were creatures of dark magic from the fairy tales his parents and others had told him. But supposedly none had been seen for centuries as he stared at the body oozing dark fluids from its wounds. A sour, reptilian stench wafted up from it.

Keeping his weapon trained on the body he hazarded a look up towards the rest of his surroundings. He was on a stone bridge in a great cavern. The stone bridge led into a circular tower that ran the center of the cavern. High above him he could see the outlines of other bridges leading off into the four points of the compass. He could hear the sounds of rushing water like rivers or waterfalls all around him, and wet mist filled the air. A faint silvery light bathed the whole cavern, though he couldn't see where the light was coming from. Nothing else was on the bridge with him.

Then beneath the barrel of his rifle, the body of the lizalfos suddenly and without warning exploded into black smoke, leaving nothing but its sword behind on the bridge as the smoke dissipated into the air.

Hundreds of thoughts raced through Daphnes' mind. The temple wasn't supposed to be like this. He had been told that members of the royal family regularly visited them now to check up on the Sages, and the last person to visit didn't report anything out of the ordinary. But his instincts in the entry cavern had been correct. Something was definitely wrong at the bottom of Lake Hylia.

"Nope. This personal trip was just canceled." He decided. "Time to go get reinforcements and do a clean up operation and possibly rescue the Sage."

Daphnes turned around to go back. He placed his palm on the door again, expecting it to slide upwards again. And... nothing. No mechanical sounds came. The door remained firmly where it was. He pulled out the waterproof two way radio he had carried on the belt of his wet suit.

"Zora Guard, General Faroson." He called into the radio. There was a unit of Zora guardsmen waiting for him just outside the entrance to the temple.

All that came through the radio, however, was static.

"Zora Guard, General Faroson, please respond." He tried again. More static.

"Anyone who can hear my transmission, this is General Daphnes Faroson, Royal Hyrule Military Guard Commander, please respond to my call." He said again, his voice raising.

This time, there was no static. There was no nothing. The radio was completely dead.

"Damn." He swore as he put the radio back in his belt. "Okay. I'm on my own." He said, going through his situation. "I'm trapped in an ancient temple. I can only assume that there are an unknown number of more potential hostiles where that lizalfos came from. And if the Sage knows I'm here, she is either unable to respond, or she's unwilling to respond to my presence. Damn." He swore again. "It's a priority two situation."

He hadn't expected to ever face a priority two situation in his lifetime. The R.H.M.G. mandate was organizes according to priority levels depending on what the situation required. When a guardsman was on his own in a crisis, he took an oath to deal with the threats in order of those priorities or give his life in the attempt. This expected, self-sacrificing courage was a part of the agreement they made upon becoming a part of the R.H.M.G.

Priority four was regular, day to day law enforcement. Priority three was defense of the United Kingdom of Hyrule from external threats or state of war. But the top two levels were the stuff of ancient legends no guardsman in that day and age ever thought they'd have to face; rescue of the Sages and members of the royal family from dark magic threats. Daphnes himself had thought they were only in the oath for reasons of tradition and religion..

"But here I am in a priority two situation. Well Dad," he said with certain irony, "I guess I get to walk a mile in your shoes today." He said as he pulled another clip from his belt and reloaded his rifle. Once reloaded, he kept it at the ready in front of him as he moved forward. Wherever he turned, the barrel of the rifle went with him.

There was another door, with another jeweled symbol switch at the other end of the bridge. He kept turning his head and eyes in every direction, keeping his ears trained on every possible sound as he reached the opposite end. He didn't want to be taken by surprise again.

He placed his hand on the symbol, and the door slid quietly open, only the barest whisper of the machinery behind it making any sound.

"So, at least it's not the power being out." He said as it opened. The white and bronzed surfaces beyond were well lit as he scanned it with his rifle before stepping though the doorway. Inside he could hear something moving as he looked around.

Then the door mechanism began to whir again and he had to make a quick decision as he rapidly stepped through the doorway. The door then came down hard right behind his heels, and he didn't bother attempting to open it again. Escape was no longer his priority.

In front of him was another tall, expansive room divided into two levels that he could discern. There was a great staircase that ran through the center of the room between the two levels and he could hear running water cascading down the steps. The staircase was sitting on some kind of a central pillar, and around the pillar was a moat or pool of water.

What concerned Daphnes more than all of this were the several lizalfos which seemed to be guarding the room. He counted two that he could see on the upper level, two on the lower, and it looked like one in the moat around the staircase. None of them acted like they had seen him yet. They all appeared to only be armed with swords and small round shields.

Okay, he thought to himself, at least they don't know what a gun is. So much the better. Immediate threat, the one in the water is closest to me. Once I shoot him, the others will try and get at me unless they're deaf. Assume the two up top can jump down into the water and get to me. Assume the two on either side can power through the water at me. Be prepared for both. Also assume there are more than I can see. Best option, keep my back to the wall next to the door and let them come to me. Drop them before they get close.

He just barely pressed the trigger on his weapon and a thin beam of green light shot out to light up on the head of the creature in the water. A second later, two rounds followed it and the water became stained with the creature's dark blood as it's body began to convulse and thrash in the water helplessly.

The first creature to come at him was from his left side, but it didn't bother with the water. It lept over the grill barricade which had separated the different quarters of the lower level and came at him, claws and fangs bared in a malicious grin as it sought to bring down its own sword on him. Daphnes' own quick reflexes came around and put two rounds into that lazalfos' chest and it landed quivering in front of him.

The other three that he had seen took advantage of their comrade's misfortune to appear on the lower level in front of the general. The next thing Daphnes knew was one of the creature's spiked tails slamming into his hands and his rifle flew out of them and into the water of the moat. His hands were stunned as another of the creatures brought its own tail around, but Daphnes went into a roll away from it, reaching for his sword as he came out of the roll and was back on his feet.

"The old fashioned way then!" He called out, and then charged the three creatures before they had time to react. He launched himself into the air in a spin bringing his sword around to make contact with the necks of all three of them, slashing their throats as he landed in another roll and then came to his feet, leaving the three lizard warriors clutching at their throats and then falling down to the stone floor, their life's blood bleeding out of them as they choked on it.

Within a minute, they too stopped moving. And then they all exploded into black smoke which dissipated into the air. He looked around for the other two he had killed, sword still in hand, but their bodies were nowhere to be found. The only things left of any of them were their swords and small round shields. He replaced his own standard issue combat blade into its scabbard on his back and picked up one of the lizalfos' shields, placing it on his right arm.

He stepped carefully over to the edge of the water surrounding the central structure which the staircase rested on and looked over it into the pool. The water was very clear and was somehow lit well enough to where he could see all the way to the bottom. His rifle was resting on the stone floor at least twenty or thirty feet down, and he could the movement of some kind of nasty looking fish swimming around it.

"Not getting that back any time soon." He said looking at the firearm, now realizing the value of his father's insistence on fencing practice when he was younger. His sword was the only weapon he had against who knew what else.

He then stopped and listened again, but couldn't hear any more sounds of movement in the room. "No more in here at least," he said to himself. He had a few minutes to think.

His priority at that point was to find the Sage and assess her condition. He knew from some memory buried in his mind that each temple had a private residence for the Sages. This was only logical as each Sage had to eat, sleep, and do their business just like everyone else whether they spent most of their time in prayer or not. The residence in the Temple of Light in Castleton was in the south wing of the cathedral-like structure. But the temple at the bottom of Lake Hylia was designed completely differently with a different intelligent species in mind. As a result, he had no idea where a Zora might think it would be logical to put a residence.

"Stupid me not to consult a blueprint of the layout of the temple before I come." He berated himself. Then he thought of the man who talked him into coming. "'Members of the royal family have been making regular visits to the temples for centuries' he said." He began to repeat Gaepora's words. "'It's just a matter of knowing how to get past all of the enchantments,' he said. 'We go in, talk to the sages, and then come back and tell mom,' he said. Right, little brother. Why did I ever let you talk me into this?"

He looked around the room to get his bearings a little better. If he had come into the room from the south, then there was a door facing both the eastern and western sides of the room, but the only one that was immediately accessible to him at the moment was the western door unless he wanted to go for a swim with the unhealthy looking fish in the pool. He looked at them again and swore they were grinning at him with razor sharp fangs.

"Nope." He decided. "Swimming is out for the moment. The western door it is then." He said as he made his way around and over the barriers to the door and, placing his shield hand on the symbol in the center, it slid open as he unsheathed his sword again with his left

The Temple of Nayru was definitely built with Zoras in mind, Daphnes decided as he worked his way from chamber to chamber and room to room There seemed to be channels and rivers of water running everywhere that turned paddlewheels and cogs like some giant water powered machine. He made the assumption that this was what provided the temple's doors with their power, and probably a few other things as well. Then, realizing again that this was all built by the Zoras, he realized that he didn't know as much about the water people the Hylians shared this world with as he thought he did. They had an architecture and technology that was distinctively their own. And this temple had been built many thousands of years before his own time.

"Damned magic." He swore again as he cut down yet another nameless beast that turned into black smoke within seconds of its death. Every room he entered had some kind of dark magic creature lurking in it, and he had no idea what was generating them or how. Daphnes had been the more athletic brother, even in High School following in his father's footsteps on the Ordonville fencing team. Magic had always been more his brother's forte, not his. In that way, Daphnes had always taken after his father, while Gaepora took after their mother who could be a formidible sorceress when she wanted to be.

He knew the reality of magic only too well, and that it was half of the underpinnings of his world's technology along with scientific observation and manipulation of the natural world. But he neither understood nor liked it well at all. It had a way of throwing things at you sideways. These creatures which kept appearing at him out of the shadows were yet another good example of that.

His arms were getting sore as his fencing skills were put to the test again and again by armed lizalfos, the bat-like keese (flying, dark magic rodents from hell, he thought) which flew at him out of the shadows, and a few other monstrosities he had no name for which seemed to infest every new room he entered. It felt like one long fencing match to which there was no end in sight as he searched for the Sage's personal chambers. Small, thin rivulets of blood dribbled down his temple from small cuts to his head. Similar cuts marked tears in his wetsuit along his chest and back where his shield or sword hadn't been quite fast enough.

Finally he came across a hallway that looked a little more promising and he followed it to the end where another door waited with warm water running in a channel through a grate underneath it. He opened it and found himself in what looked like a large indoor swimming pool surrounded by what could loosely be referred to as "furniture" carved from the same stone as the walls and floors. In the waters of the pool, he could see structures that resembled a couch and a bed.

Up on the floor in front of him was a kind of office desk of polished black marble with white spidery lines running through it. Keeping his sword in hand for any more surprises, he went cautiously over to the desk to investigate it for any clue about what might have happened to cause the infestation in the temple.

Looking at the surface of the desk, there was a slate with wax and a kind of stylus with which to write into the wax. "Well, that makes sense," he said to himself, "can't have paper and pens where there's always water around." He picked up the slate and looked at it, but found nothing. It looked like it had been recently cleared of any writing. Next to the slate, however was a device he found much more promising; an archaic, mechanically based black telephone.

He pulled it in front of him. If it still worked, he could call R.H.M.G. Command and have them send reinforcements. It was a simple design connected to a waterproof cord which ran along the walls and out through a hole in the stone ceiling above, presumably continuing up to the surface and on to the phone lines which criss-crossed Hyrule.

He picked up the handset and held it to his ear waiting for a dial tone, but the handset was silent. "Damn." He swore again. "Does nothing work down here?" He said as nearly slammed the handset back down on the dialer base.

One thing was for certain, he was alone in that room as he looked around it. And then it struck him. He was alone in that room. he tensed up as he began scanning the walls and ceiling for any creature he could have missed. Every room and chamber he had been in so far had hidden some kind of monster for him to face. Every one.

"So why is this one an exception?" He asked himself slowly as he looked carefully throughout the Sage's chamber. "What's protecting it?"

He could see nothing obvious, either threatening or magical, but he knew from his elementary magic classes during his school days that meant nothing. A magical object didn't need to stand out from the space around it, and magic could cloak and conceal just about anything.

"Which also means the Sage could still be in this room," he told himself. "Ruta?" He called out. "Your grace? This is General Daphnes Faroson of the Royal Hyrule Military Guard. If you're here, please show yourself."

"Prove it." Came a disembodied voice which had the strange, slightly melodic gurgling quality of a mature female Zora's from somewhere off to his left.

"Prove it?" Well, that answers that question, he thought to himself, assuming it wasn't a monster mimicking the Sage. But that made no sense either, as a monster wouldn't have waited this long to attack. "I don't really have time for these kinds of games, your grace. In case you haven't noticed, this temple's been compromised and is overrun. I've got to find a way to get us out of here and somewhere safe so I can call in a better equipped cleanup team."

He heard a soft, gurgling chuckle moving at a distance behind him. "You think this is funny?" He asked, his voice rising in anger. "I just fought my way through this gods forsaken place with nothing but a sword and borrowed shield looking for you."

The chuckling stopped, and the Sage's voice spoke again. "You carry the name assumed by great kings of the past, as well as the name of the great goddess of courage. Prove to me you are who you say you are, Daphnes Faroson, and I will reveal myself to you."

And how in the shadow am I supposed to do that? He swore in his thoughts. Putting aside that question for the moment, he asked, "What happened here? How was the temple compromised?"

"You brought them." Came the reply.

"I'm sorry?" Daphnes responded. "How in the shadow did I bring these things here?!"

"The temples are places of great power. They serve as nexus points between belief and reality." She explained. "You created them when you entered the temple." Her voice now came from at least six feet to his right.

"Are you saying I believed they would be here, and poof! Here they are?" He asked in disbelief.

"Exactly." She said in a near whisper. "You brought these things to my home." Her voice became accusing.

"Look, I didn't... I mean, I just came to ask you a personal question about my mom and your goddess. I don't know what kind of a person you think I am..." He tried to say when she interrupted and said, "That is what I am trying to determine. Your fear created the creatures which now infest this temple, and only your faith can rid it of them."

"My fear?" He asked. "And what was I afraid of?" He challenged.

"Only you can answer that question, son of Farore." The Sage responded from somewhere in front of him.

Great, she wants me to soul search. He thought. He took a deep breath and let it out trying to think back. "When I was back in the entry cavern, something didn't feel right. I thought something might be wrong inside." He said, trying to work it out.

"Why would you think that?" She asked.

"I don't know. My brother said members of the royal family come and check up on you regularly without incident." He answered honestly.

"And yet you came armed and looking for a fight." She replied. "Why?"

He thought back. Why? Because the king recommended it. Because every story I've ever heard about these places was about how my dad had to go in and turn it into a slaughterhouse for magic monsters once every hundred years or so. Because... He went deeper into his own mind, and then the answer came to him. "Because I've always been afraid of..." He stopped himself.

"Yes?" She asked.

"Because of my father." He said. "For as far back as I can remember, people have nearly worshiped my father as the Hero of legend."

"And so he is." She responded.

"And I'm his son." He continued. "I remember story after story of him having to fight nightmares made real with no one else to help him, and I've heard him cry out in the night from the terrors he still goes through. It scared the shadow out of me when I was a kid that I might... that I might have to do it myself one day. I hated my dad having to go through that, and it scared me I'd have to do the same. That's why I joined the fencing team, and the guard. So that when the day came I'd be able to face it. It's not the monsters that ever scared me. I learned to deal with them in the guard. It's being his son, and everything that goes with it."

"And does it still scare you, son of Farore?" The Sage asked. She hadn't moved. "Now that you have been called upon to fight those same nightmares?"

"Like I said, it's not the creatures." He said quietly. "Look, I don't know how to prove to you what you want. My dad's Link Faroson, and my mom's the former crown Princess, Zelda. I guess that also means that I'm the grandson of both Farore and Nayru as well if all the rest of it is true. I guess I'm also royal family if you want to go that route too." A slight, almost imperceptible tremor went through him at the thought. "My mom named me after her dad, Daphnes."

"Prove to me you are the son of the Princess Zelda." The Sage demanded.

Okay, he thought letting out a sigh as he realized neither of them were in any pressing physical danger. Though I'd prefer the pressing physical danger, he also thought.

"My mom said that someone who asked for proof might recognize this. The only people who know this melody are members of the royal family." He said as he pulled a small flute carved from deku wood. Pressing it to his lips, he played the first six notes of the melody, the lullaby his mother made them learn by heart.

"Indeed, my grandson." The voice changed into something more resembling his mother's as a mature Hylian woman in a blue dress appeared in front of him. "I know that lullaby very well. I sang it to your mother in her crib ten thousand years ago."

"Nayru..." Daphnes whispered in awe at the appearance of the goddess in front of him.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

The aged Hylian man sat motionless in a padded metal chair next to the equally elder woman who lay sitting up in the hospital bed. Both had their eyes closed, their hands resting relaxed on their laps. The shades to the window outside were drawn, and the only light in the room was the artificial lighting overhead. To any casual observer, they both appeared to be in a state of perfect, contemplative meditation.

But the ascended being who watched over them both knew better. She could see into their minds and hearts, and observed the struggle both were undergoing as they attempted to quiet their minds and delve deep into the quiet, unmoving darkness of the mind at perfect peace.

In truth, she hadn't stopped watching over the woman who had been so dear to her heart for millennia since she took ill with the dark blight, the last remnants of an evil power that nearly destroyed their world and everything in it. It had been a final parting shot from an ancient enemy long since defeated. It was by mere chance that her Lady had stumbled into the last remaining fragments of it in the woods near their home in Ordon more than two weeks prior. Quantitatively it had been miniscule, but it was enough to turn the white blood cells in her body cancerous, and it couldn't be removed by any science or magic the Hylians were now capable of.

Impa would have removed it herself, was going to remove it herself, but she was stopped by the Three. These did not always explain their decisions, even to her, or the others. As in her mortal body, so now, it was her duty to serve and obey the will of her gods, even if she was now considered one herself.

She could tell that the Hero was still struggling, even after his earlier conversation with his wife. That proved something of a painful talk for him to have with her.

"It's you." He had come into the room, and said it with almost no warning. It wasn't an accusation. It wasn't a question. It wasn't even a greeting. It was just a statement of fact, and Impa immediately knew to what he had been referring even if her Lady did not.

His wife had, fortunately, been eating a meal at the time and so was not in the middle of her own meditation at the time. Several emotions passed through her Lady as he came into the room. Joy, surprise, fear, hope, and others as he came up to her bed.

"Link!" She had said. "I was so afraid..." She began to say. "I was worried you might not come back this time."

The Hero had said nothing in answer to her Lady's statements, but continued with his own train of thought. "I know what held me back before. What's always held me back from ascending on my own. I remembered, Zelda." He said.

"Me." She had said, nodding in understanding. "I know my love. I've always known."

"I could never let go of you. Even after you had passed on that first time, I couldn't let go. It was the whole reason I sought ascension in the first place." He had told her. He had then shared his other discovery with her. "You weren't supposed to help me then, were you? You helped me ascend when I hadn't let go of everything I was supposed to."

"No. I wasn't." She told him. "I suppose I couldn't let go of you forever either."

"Then how did you ascend the first time?" He asked.

"It was different then, Link. I was old and dying. It's easier to let go of everything when you know it will be taken from you anyways. I let go of you then as I slipped quietly into the peace of death, and that was when I was transformed." She told him, and then she realized, "I just remembered that. I didn't remember it before now."

Indeed she hadn't, Impa had observed. That part of her memory unlocked at only the right time as it was meant to by the Three. The ascended being could see the locks on the rest of her memory were still in place, only to come undone with certain key events triggering them, though Impa had been prohibited from knowing what those key events would be. The "why?" of that was no mystery. She would have been tempted to arrange their circumstances to unlock them faster than was good for them. Everything had to unfold according to the plan of the Three or else all their work would be for nothing and these two would suffer the same fate again.

Another presence entered the hospital room, invisible to the contemplating mortals, but fully known to the former Sage. He was an outsider in this world, but also welcome and familiar to those ascended beings who resided in that reality.

"Greetings, Daniel Jackson." Impa welcomed him. "I see you have already had a hand in these affairs."

"Hello, Impa. It's been a long time." The outsider returned. "They're still struggling, aren't they?" He said, gesturing to the two mortals.

"Yes. But I believe they are making important progress. You made sure you couldn't be followed here from your world?" Impa asked.

"No one on the lower planes can locate and use the linking book, if that's what you mean. It's quite safe, and the stargate was destroyed in the explosion I contained." He confirmed for her. He shared a vision with her of the book being buried in a tiny cavern under thousands of feet of rock and stone. "I know how they perceive what is happening." He said gesturing to the Hero and her Lady. "But why are their mothers putting them through this?"

"The Three do not always share their minds with me, Daniel. But I can speculate." She responded.

Daniel continued to observe the two in front of him. "Zelda has only two and a half weeks left at most, doesn't she?" He asked.

"Not a lot of time." Impa agreed tensely.

"There are some who spend decades in contemplation before they are able to reach ascension." Daniel told her.

"They were given the last forty five years." Impa told him. "Those decades were theirs to use as they wished. They were told to stay out of mortal affairs and not to interfere. They chose to ignore the inescapable."

"And?" He asked.

"And the threat from Demise has been over for hundreds of years. But the Hero's mind is burdened with thousands of years of horror and traumatic images from the responsibility he took upon himself. He only took that burden upon himself because he never released all of his burden before he ascended. He couldn't let go of his wife. If he were to be assisted in ascending again, it would only be a matter of time before he chose to incarnate again and suffer those same traumatic experiences all over again. His mother wishes him to be free of his burdens once and for all."

Daniel contemplated this for some time, and then asked, "And Zelda?"

"Hylia first let go of this world when she lay dying the first time, but developed an attachment to it and its people again shortly afterwards. Her compassion, along with her wisdom, has always been one of her greatest strengths, but this attachment is what has tied her to this world. She has never been able to just let this world stand or fall on its own." Impa surmised for him. "As long as she remains attached to this world, it is only a matter of time before she incarnates again to save it. As your friend, John Shepherd once told the Hero, there is always going to be some new evil arising to threaten the world."

"So you're saying that she cares too much about this world, and Link cares too much about her?" Daniel tried to put it together.

"As you well know, Daniel, compassion is one thing and attachment quite another. I care about this world, and about my Lady very much. But it would not help either if my interference keeps them from following the path of ascension for themselves." She told him.

"So you would allow them to cease to be if they can't do this on their own?" He asked.

"Did you not with your loved ones in your world when their time came?" Impa returned.

"The choice had to be theirs." He said, understanding. "And I knew my wife especially couldn't just let everything go. Even death couldn't change that. It wouldn't have been the right decision for anyone."

"It pains me, as it did you, to remain at the distance we must. But that is the price we pay for this existence." She said.

"Is there no way we can help them without upsetting the plans of the Three?" Daniel asked.

"Not allowing the Hero to stand or fall on his own is what caused his suffering in the first place." Impa said. "You've already unblocked his mind, and no one has undone this since he returned. I must assume then that you have already helped without too much upset."

"What about Zelda? Can we unblock her mind?" He asked.

"Look closely into her mind, Daniel. There are certain events which must occur before those memories are unlocked and the obstruction to ascension is lifted." She responded. "Ultimately, it is her attachments which will be the harder of the two to release."

Daniel continued to observe the two. "I would like to remain and observe with you if that's okay." He said.

"You are always welcome as a friend, Daniel Jackson. But I ask that you respect the wishes of the Three on these matters. One way or the other, the cycle of suffering for the Hero and my Lady will end with this lifetime." Impa told him.

"Of course." He replied letting his sight continue to dwell on the two Hylians, contemplating their situation.

The music which wafted through the trees was light and festive as Gaepora tried to follow its source. It sounded as though it was coming from a flute in the far off distance. The moonlight overhead was bright and silvery as it drifted through the gaps in the canopy of the trees to the forest floor. Over his eyes were goggles which, through a combination of science and Hylian magic, allowed a person to see clearly even in the darkest night.

So far he hadn't been led astray as long as he listened for the music, though it seemed to be taking him in circles along a worn forest trail according to the field compass he carried with him. According to all of his field and survival training he received, he should have come back to the archway of trees he began at several times now, but he hadn't. "Just follow the music." He repeated to himself. His mother had warned him, "If you go in any other direction you'll find you've wasted hours of walking." And he had taken the warning seriously.

So far, with the exception of more random patches of the man-eating Deku Babas, he wondered why he had been encouraged to bring all of the gear he had. For the fearsome reputation the Lost Woods had, it had been a pretty quiet hike for the last two hours except for the lively flute playing growing louder and louder as he hiked closer and closer through the woods to his goal.

"Oof!" Out of nowhere something small and hard slammed into the chest of his magically reinforced flack jacket and knocked him off of his feet and hard onto the ground. It felt like being hit with a sledgehammer as he hit the ground. His flak jacket absorbed most of the piercing impact like it was designed to, but it couldn't stop him from losing his balance.

"Damn." He swore as he hit the ground. "That's what I get for not paying attention." He immediately rolled over onto his sore chest and flattened himself out on the ground. Another small object whizzed over him like it had been shot from a cannon and he turned his goggles in the direction he thought it had come from.

He turned his head and eyes slowly sweeping the forest ahead of him. There, about twenty feet in the direction he had been walking was a relatively short, red "bush" with eyes that glowed yellow in the darkness.

"Well, I'll be damned." He said to himself. "Never thought I'd see one of you little buggers." It was what his dad had affectionately called a "Deku Scrub." They were, like the Great Deku Tree, intelligent, sentient plants. They were rarely seen any more though, preferring to be left alone in their own... what did they call their communities, villages? Patches? He didn't know.

He might have considered the thing just annoying, and maybe kind of endearing in a strange kind of way, except that it was shooting rock hard Deku seeds at him at near bullet speeds. His flak jacket could take it, but his head wasn't protected from them. He slid his R.H.M.G. enchanted shield off of his back and went to his knees with the shield in front of him. Another seed hit the shield and ricocheted off in a different direction as he brought his assault rifle up and lit the space between the Scrub's glowing eyes up with it's green laser site.

Then he hesitated, and lowered the rifle. "Nope." He said. "You're just trying to protect your territory, aren't you, buddy?"

Another seed hit the shield and ricochet off hard into the distance. "But I still can't have you shooting at me, either. Time to take a page from Dad's book."

He had heard the stories about these little guys hundreds of times, and how his father had dealt with them. The trick was in how you angled the ricochet with the shield. If you did it right, the seed would bounce back and hit the Scrub hard enough to scare it and send it running. But he needed to get a little closer.

Staying low, he got to his feet and kept the shield facing the Scrub as he crept forward. Another seed hit the shield and ricocheted to the left to the Scrub. "C'mon." He said in irritation as he continued forward, crouching behind the shield emblazoned with the winged triforce crest of the royal family.

Several more rock like seeds hit the shield as he moved towards the creature slowly, each one ricocheting off to the right or the left as Gaepora tried to get the angle just right. Then, about ten feet from the Scrub another seed hit the shield and ricocheted back hitting the sentient bush in what Gaepora assumed was its face. The creature yelped in surprise, let out a high pitched shriek and ran off into the forest. "Dad was right. It worked." Gaepora said to himself with mild surprise, grinning in amused satisfaction.

"So much for you." He said to himself as he stood up, but he kept his shield on his right arm and his rifle ready. The only reason why he had gotten the sore chest to begin with was because he had gotten careless. Not as easy of a walk as I thought, and there's more than Kokiri in these woods that call it home, he thought to himself.

Then he turned his attention back to the music as he listened for it. It was still there, its carnival like melody wafting through the night time forest. He carefully looked around himself for any more signs of the "bush people," but he didn't see any. Then he continued on, weapons out.

Gaepora could hear the footsteps of large creatures coming from beyond the hedges. He also knew that if he wanted to get to the source of the music, he had to go through the hedge maze. From his dad's stories, he also had a pretty good idea of what creature's footfalls they were.

It had taken him another few hours, five more Deku Scrubs, a few Skull Kids, and more Deku Baba patches than he cared to keep count of to reach the grove in which he now stood. None of them seemed too fond of trespassers in their woods. The Deku Baba plants he turned to man-eating shredded salad, and this cost him most of the ammunition he brought for his assault rifle, though he still had a few clips for his sidearm. The Deku Scrubs he used his shield trick, and it got a little easier with each time. It just didn't feel right to do any real harm to the little guys. The Skull Kids... They liked to play games with his mind and move things around in order to confuse him as to which direction he was going, but they couldn't change the direction of the music, and this became his anchor point as he moved through the shifting forest. They never tried to physically harm him, but by the time he had gotten to the grove, his nerves were at their breaking point. He didn't know how his father had kept his sanity having to deal with them in the ancient past.

With every step the realization had grown that he was retracing the path his father had taken many times before, and he had only done it with his wits and weapons that were virtually medieval. Gaepora's respect for the goat rancher he had known and loved all of his life grew and grew as the music became louder and louder.

Now he stood facing the hedge maze, and the other more or less intelligent species of the Lost Woods, moblins. What Gaepora knew about them was what he mostly remembered from his father's stories. They lived in small family groups in clearly marked regions of the Lost Woods and the other forests of Eastern and Western Hyrule, and most of them stayed as far away from the towns and villages as they could, though his father had met a few individuals on occasion who were more open to trade. They lived in a kind of caste society based on the color of their fur, with the bluish green moblins being the dominant caste, and those with reddish orange fur relegated to menial positions. They were easily eight feet tall on average, muscular, and usually bad tempered. The most distinctive feature about them was their bulldog like heads. Their favorite weapon was a sharpened spear with which they happily gutted trespassers without hesitation. Reasoning with them was out of the question once they were provoked, and moblins always seemed to be provoked about something. Those were the creatures which waited for him among the tall hedge walls.

He checked his clips of ammunition for the rifle and he had only one left. Set to single shot, that should be enough if he could quietly slip through the maze and target them one by one. But that would leave a lot of dead moblins he surmised; dead moblins that might have parents or families of their own.

"Well, Dad, you told us you had to kill more than one moblin to get where you needed to go." He said quietly, out loud. It had sounded exciting and adventurous when his father had told those stories to him and his brother and sister as kids. But as he stepped towards the maze entrance, the less easy he felt about it. "The question is, do I really need to?" The moblins were here because they were guarding the path to the temple. It wasn't right to slaughter them just for doing what they're here for.

Then a thought occurred to him. "How does the royal family get through here to check on the Sage without having to deal with these guys?" He asked himself. The members of the extended royal family who came to check on the Sages regularly weren't soldiers, though they were accompanied by guardsmen, and many were elderly. There was no way they could run this gauntlet safely, and he couldn't quite see the petite, grandmotherly Lady Tala stealthily stalking the moblins like a hardened assassin. There had to be another way through.

He studied the hedge walls intently until he noticed that each had a hard platform at the top, wide enough for a single person to walk comfortably across. "It can't be that easy, can it?" He asked himself, staring at the platforms. "So, how do I get up there?"

He searched all around the entry path to the maze but found nothing. No concealed ladders, no neatly concealed elevator leaves, and no way up from this side that he could see. But entering the maze meant having to deal with its guardians and having their somewhat innocent blood on his hands for no really good reason. "Except for my mother's future, that is." He reminded himself.

"So, is that it?" He asked out loud. "Do I have to choose between my mother's salvation and the lives of these moblins only doing their jobs? There's got to be another way." The woman he knew as his mother would rather die than be saved by slaughtering innocent lives, he knew all too well, no matter what race those innocent lives happened to be.

Then some of the leaves on one of the hedges caught his eye and he came over to inspect them. They appeared to be arranged differently than the others. Not exactly different colors, but as the sun began to break over the eastern horizon hidden from view by the woods there were three patches of leaves that were grouped closely together that caught the new sunlight and reflected it differently than the rest. The pattern the leaves made was so familiar to him that it couldn't be a coincidence. The sunlight reflected off of the leaves put together made the shape of the three triangles of a triforce.

As an experiment, he pulled out the ocarina he had carried with him and played the melody his mother had taught them, and sung to them herself when they were young. The triangles glowed golden and in front of them branches shifted and grew together until they formed a ladder which reached from the ground up to the platform.

"That's more like it." He said as he began his ascent to the top platform about ten or fifteen feet off the ground. When he reached the top, he could see the entire maze laid out in front of him, and the moblins stalking it, separated by small pools of water which looked like they were there to keep the moblins from charging each other. The walls of the maze turned into a fairly straightforward footpath with only a few breaks in between that he saw he was going to have to jump, though the jumps would be fairly easy.

He proceeded along the platforms until he reached the other side of the maze where another, more obvious metal frame ladder stood to let him back down to the floor of the grove. Before he made his descent to the ground he took a good look at what lay in front of him where the music continued to play loudly and happily.

There was one more moblin standing in his way that he could see, and this one made all of the others he had seen moving through the maze look like children in comparison. It carried a massive club and stood on the only path through a corridor formed out of the trunks of trees. There was no way to get to the other side except through the giant moblin. So far it was just standing, silent but wary. Its intelligent, but feral eyes watching the corridor like a hawk.

"Seriously?" Gaepora asked himself. "You've got to be kidding me. How did Lady Tala get past this?" He wondered aloud in frustration as he sized up the giant up the path.

You're not Lady Tala, the thought came quietly but forcefully unbidden to his mind. Could it be possible? He wondered. "It's this place." He reasoned. "The obstacles are shifting depending on who's trying to get to the temple. Here I am, a heavily armed veteran soldier. Why wouldn't it shift to something big and mean?" But that meant he hadn't escaped his main dilemma at all. "And I'm going to have to kill it to get past, aren't I?"

Even though he knew this would allow him to progress, he felt defeated, and sorry for the big guy. From the top of the platform, with a heavy heart Gaepora knelt down on one knee and brought his rifle's laser sight up to rest its green laser dot on the massive forehead of the creature. It was big, but not big enough to where the rounds from his rifle wouldn't do their job.

He hesitated again, and he studied the creature. He wondered if it could see him, and if it knew what he was about to do. Its club looked like it could substitute for a wrecking ball to take down a brick and steel building as it held it against its shoulder like the silent sentinel it was. The big ugly creature had one foot planted on either side of the corridor of trees, effectively blocking the way completely, its legs forming a kind of archway about five or six feet high. Gaepora studied that archway intently, a plan forming in his mind. He took his finger off the trigger and lowered the rifle. "Maybe we can both walk away from this, huh big fella?"

He shouldered his rifle and carefully climbed down the ladder moving into the corridor. As he did so, the giant moblin seemed to come to life, its eyes glaring down at the Hylian general. The club slowly came off its shoulder and the creature held it menacingly in both hands.

Gaepora slowly approached the creature, his hands free of his weapons. "Easy big fella," he said. "If we do this right, we both make it out of here alive."

Then the club hit the ground hard causing a small tremor as the moblin slammed it into the ground in front of itself. It then raised the club and swung it again in front of Gaepora, though it didn't move from its position in the corridor. Again, and again it beat the ground with the club in front of the Hylian general.

"Right." He said, wondering if this was actually going to be a good idea or if he was going to end up fertilizer for the plants as the moblin hit the ground again.

One, two, three, and then a pause. One, two, three, and then a pause. The moblin was beating the ground in a rhythm and never moved from where it stood to try and get a better shot at the Hylian as Gaepora studied the creature. Every once in a while it would shake its head and let out a fierce yell like a challenge, but that was about the extent of it.

He had one shot at this, and if it failed, one of them would die. The rhythm of the moblin started up again, one, two, three, and then Gaepora sprinted like mad towards the creature's legs. The creature raised its club again intending to bring it down hard on Gaepora's head, but Gaepora didn't stop running. He ran and then dove in between the creature's legs into a roll behind it and then got back to his feet and kept running on through the corridor. He hazarded a single look back to find the moblin looking around in confusion not knowing where the little Hylian had gone. Hopefully, Gaepora thought, he'll shortly forget I was even there.

Gaepora emerged from the corridor into a courtyard surrounded by walls made of rough cut stones. At the far end of the courtyard was the entrance to an ancient stone building which, at one time, had looked much like the temple of light in Castleton, and which, at one time, looked as though it had a staircase leading up to the entrance, though he could see that had crumbled away long ago. He wondered why the royal engineers had never made repairs to the entry stairs, but this wasn't the main thing which caught his attention.

Seated on a stone bench in the courtyard was a younger, attractive Hylian woman with forest green hair playing an ocarina. She wore a dress which looked as though it could have been made of the leaves of the nearby trees, and it looked as if sunlight danced in between them. She was barefoot as she sat and played, and there was something strikingly familiar in her appearance. The music he had been following through the woods for hours was coming from the ocarina which she played.

Taking a deep breath, Gaepora pressed on towards the woman whose music filled the woods around him.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

The woman standing in front of Daphnes looked so much like his mother had ten or twenty years before that the Hylian general was speechless before her, going down on one knee head bowed clumsily forming the three triangles around his head and shoulders with his three fingers ending in the center of his chest above his heart that every Hylian child was taught, though he had never done so before.

"My Lady," He said, fear creeping into his voice. "How may I serve you?" Every doubt he had ever had, and every word he had spoken against Hyrule's deities came crashing back through his mind, and he felt the weight of each in her presence.

"Is this how a grandson greets his grandmother?" Nayru asked him, a maternal affection ringing her voice. She walked forward, little bursts of light and white flame emanating from her form. Gently placing two fingers under his chin, she lifted his face until he met her gaze, then took his hand and brought him to his feet until he stood before her again. "You traveled all this way and fought through monsters born of your own fears to speak to me." She told him as only a mother or grandmother could. "So, grandson, let us talk." She folded her hands patiently in front of her.

"Uh..." He tried to speak, "My mother... your daughter is dying. The doctors can't cure her." He said, trying not to stumble over his words.

"I know this." Nayru told him sincerely. "There hasn't been a day which has gone by since my daughter took mortal form again that she has not occupied my every thought; she and her family, including you, my grandson."

"But... But if that's true, why don't you cure her? Surely, my Lady you have the power?" Daphnes asked, almost pleading.

"Yes, that is true. I have the power to cure her. But then what? She is nearing the end of her mortal life no matter whether I cure her or not." She sighed, and brought her hand up to caress the side of his head. "You look so much like your father, but you have your mother's eyes, did you know?" She asked wistfully, then her tone became more serious again as she took her hand away. "Curing her now would only prolong the inevitable. In twenty or thirty years, she would be facing the same problem again."

"Yes, but twenty or thirty years..." Daphnes began to protest.

"Is but the blink of an eye when you consider how long we have existed, dear one. My concern is for more than her physical life, Daphnes." Nayru told him.

"So it's true then." Daphnes said. It was a statement, not a question. "She really is the goddess, Hylia. And my father really is..."

"The Hero. Yes. It is true, every story you have ever heard from them." She confirmed. "Actually, there's a great deal they haven't told you for fear they wouldn't be believed."

Daphnes felt something wet on his cheek and raising his hand to his face he found that his eyes were watering, and a tear had spilled from his eye as he tried to come to terms with what he was told. And then he realized everything they had told him had been the truth, including his parents' main problem right now.

"But why, then, did you block their ability to rejoin you where they belong?" He asked. "My mother doesn't have much time left. Why won't you help them?"

Nayru closed her eyes as if she was debating how much to say. She took in a deep breath and let it back out slowly. "I could do that too. But then what happens if they are able to rejoin us and another crisis occurs here in the mortal plane?"

"What do you mean?" Daphnes asked. "I don't understand."

"I know, dear one. Let me try and explain. As my grandson, I owe you that much at the least. Once upon a time, and still to this day, it has been our highest law not to interfere with the free will of those less advanced than we are. This was the original cause of the war between your parents and the one you called the Demon King. When he sought to enslave your people, your mother intervened on the behalf of all mortals and entered the mortal plane again to defend all of Hyrule's people against him. Your father followed suit to protect and defend her. And so the cycle was for thousands of years until it was broken almost three hundred years ago." Nayru explained.

"So every child of Hyrule knows this." Daphnes said.

"But what every child may not know is that once Demise was slain, Farore, Din, and I agreed there was no more reason to enable their continuous re-ascension and rebirth to protect this land. We had made an exception to our law for ten thousand years and it wrought havoc and disaster across the face of this world for millennia." She continued.

"But wouldn't it have been worse had you not?" He asked.

"And that was our justification for it, dear one." She agreed. "And so we permitted their re-ascension one last time over two hundred and fifty years ago. And then a new threat, a new 'Demon King' came to this world, one we had not encountered before. My daughter reacted without hesitation, and her husband followed after her as he had always done. This was when the three of us realized that unless something changed within your parents, the cycle for them would never be broken. Your mother's greatest weakness is her attachment to this world and its people. Your father's is his attachment to your mother."

"I would not see that as a weakness, my Lady." Daphnes told her. "Love and compassion are never weaknesses."

Nayru smiled. "No, they are not. But your parents have suffered for these attachments. You yourself have heard your father's cries in the night from the terrors he experiences as he dreams. All that he has faced has bred a shadow within him that only grows worse with each reincarnation. Your mother is not far behind, though she hides it much better. If they cannot give up these attachments and allow your people to evolve, make mistakes, and continue on their own I fear that their cycle of suffering will continue for eternity and none of the three of us want that for them. They are too dear to each of us." Then her voice changed and there came an emotion that colored it as the goddesses own eyes began to tear. "No one wants her to rejoin us more than I, Daphnes. But would you have her do so if it meant condemning her to an eternal existence of pain and suffering?"

Daphnes's heart was torn as he understood what she was saying. "No." He said. "I wouldn't want that for anyone, least of all mother and father." He then asked, "What can I do? What must I do to save them both?" His expression took on a resoluteness, a determination that Nayru had seen so many times before in the man's father. He would jump into the depths of shadow and twilight if it meant saving those he loved.

"This is a battle within their own hearts, my grandson, that only they can face. There are many roads that travel the path of ascension, but one must walk that path themselves. No one can walk it for them." She told him.

"And what happens if they can't find their way on their own?" He asked, a fire beginning to build within him. "Do you leave them to oblivion?" That last question came out sharper than he had intended.

"Have faith, Daphnes." Nayru told him gently, though she didn't answer the question. "I only want what's best for everyone."

The music played joyfully as though there wasn't a care in the world as Gaepora approached the stone bench on which sat the unusual woman slowly and reverently. "Your grace?" He asked, assuming her to be the Sage. "Saria?"

The playing stopped as the ocarina came away from lips of the attractive woman with the flowing green hair. Those well shaped lips formed into a playful smile. "I have been called that before." She said with a giggle. "And you are Gaepora, son of the Hero." Her green eyes were bright and mischeivous. "And of the Princess." She added.

"Yes." He said. "They're why I'm here, your grace."

"Are they now?" She asked. "You mean you didn't just come to see me? I'm hurt." She teased. "I get so few visitors here."

"The moblins may have something to do with that, your grace." He responded, trying to "feel" her out.

"Well, you're here now, let me look at you." She said, nearly bouncing to her feet. She stood eye to eye with him as she looked him over, walking in a circle around him and then stopping in front of him again to stare into his eyes which were blue like his mother's. It felt uncomfortable and awkward.

"So, what about your parents did you want to see me about?" The woman asked, placing her feminine hands down in front of her waist, the ocarina still grasped loosely by them.

"Your grace, my mother, the Princess, is dying." He began.

"All mortals are dying. That is why they are called mortals." The woman replied, a playful twinkle in her eye. "Or did you not know this?" An expression came over her face as though she had just realized that might be a possibility.

"Your grace, please." He continued, trying to keep himself from becoming angry. "I'm here to speak with my grandmother, the goddess of this temple about her condition."

Now the woman looked confused, and then she whispered conspiratorially, "If your grandmother's a goddess, then shouldn't she be able to hear you no matter where you talk to her?"

"Yes, that's true, but," he became frustrated. "But she hasn't talked to anyone about this. She hasn't responded to us."

"Have you tried talking to her?" The woman asked innocently, a sincere expression on her face. "That's usually the first way to start a conversation." She whispered as though it might be new information to him.

A headache was beginning to form behind Gaepora's eyes. He didn't know if it was from the lack of sleep or the clearly Kokiri woman in front of him. He reminded himself that this was a Sage who was at least a thousand years older than he and she spent all of her time alone here in the temple compound. She was entitled to a few eccentricities. He took a deep breath and let it out to try and calm himself down.

"Your grace..." He searched for the words to say to make the woman understand the seriousness of his mother's condition. "My mother's ability to ascend on her own has been blocked. I've come to ask the goddess to allow her to..."

"Why?" She asked as though in shock.

"Why what?" He replied in confusion.

"Why was her ability to ascend blocked?" Her eyes were wide as though it was the worst thing that she could think of. "She must have done something awful."

He had been about to say that he didn't know why. None of them did. But that wasn't true. He had heard that story too. "It was because she interfered with mortal affairs as a goddess in front of the whole world, or at least as many as were watching the television at the time. The rules she incarnated under stated that whatever she did had to be as a mortal." He conceded, feeling a bit deflated.

The woman stared at him, her eyes wide blinking at him, her mouth open. "Oh." She said, closing her own mouth with the back of her hand. "Well, that would do it then. It sounds like she broke the rules and got exactly what she was told would happen if she did." She crossed her arms over her breasts and struck a pose.

"Yes. I suppose that is true." He replied, feeling both patronized and rebuked. He then said, "But she was also told that if she and my father stayed out of interfering from mortal affairs they would be allowed to ascend again."

"And have they?" She asked as though a teacher asking a schoolboy a question in class.

"Yes." He said in exasperation. "For the last four and a half decades they've been goat ranchers on the backside of Ordon. She gave up the throne my..." he hadn't ever used this term for the king before he realized, "half-brother now occupies in order to comply with the judgment of the goddesses. She's lived in seclusion with my father out of the public eye as much as possible for this very reason."

"But has she let go of interfering in mortal affairs?" Saria asked, the tone of her voice changing. The playfulness seeping out of it. "It seems to me that's the real question. If she were to ascend again, would she stay put? Or would she be reborn again at the first sign of a bad wizard? Hmmm? Can she remain content in the realm of the gods without pulling your father back from his well deserved rest to relive nightmare after nightmare again, and again, and again? Can she let those people on this plane of existence mature and evolve on their own without trying to protect them from every little Demon King that comes through. They can't you know, with someone always around to do it for them."

"So the goddess is just going to let her cease to be when her body fails?" Gaepora couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Saria bent over just a little and whispered in his ear, "Why don't you ask your grandmother yourself?" She then walked back to her stone bench.

Gaepora was stunned. The Sage seemed so cruel and heartless as she reclined again on her bench and began to play the bouncing, carnival like tune on her brown and green ocarina. Her forest green eyes watched him as she played. He had traveled all that way only to be mocked and ridiculed by a heartless Sage who clearly had no interest in helping his mother. He turned away from the attractive yet cold woman not knowing what to do next.

"Farore," He called out, tears forming in his eyes, "if you can hear me over this damned ocarina, please. I need to talk to you. Please, help my parents. I'm begging you, grandmother, and I know and believe now that you are my grandmother. Please speak to me."

The ocarina playing behind him stopped and everything in the forest went dead quiet.

"I always hear it when my children call out to me." Came a more mature, motherly version of the voice of the Sage behind him. "And that is the first time I've heard anyone call my ocarina 'damned,' grandson. Perhaps you might care to explain?"

Gaepora's heart nearly stopped beating in his chest as he froze where he was. No... he thought, as he slowly turned around. The Sage stood a few feet from where he had been standing, but it looked like she had matured about thirty years as streaks of grey ran through her forest green hair, and laugh lines creased her otherwise flawless face. Flickers of light and white flame ran along the outline of her form.

"Farore..." He said as he faced her. "Grandmother?"

"I believe we've already established that, dear boy." She replied.

Without knowing what else to do he fell to his knees, head bowed in front of her. "My Lady, I... I'm sorry... I was upset. I didn't mean to..." He tried to apologize.

"Don't apologize." She told him. "I said it was the first time. I didn't say I was upset about it. You were honest about how you felt. Honesty goes a long ways with me, Gaepora."

"Yes, my Lady." He replied, head still bowed.

"And get up off the ground, dear boy. I may be your goddess, but so is your mother and I have never once seen you on your knees or prostrated before her." She told him, closing the distance between them and taking his hand to raise him to his feet. "You are my grandson. Do you really think I'm going to smite you for insulting my ocarina?"

Gaepora shook his head, not knowing how to reply otherwise.

"Good boy." She told him.

"You said you were Saria." He managed to get out.

"No. I said I have been called that. And so I have in your distant past. Many times as a matter of fact when I had to take a more mortal disguise in order to raise my son properly. No matter what woman might have been chosen to bear him as a child, he has always been, and always will be, my son." She said with a fierce protectiveness that could only come from a mother's heart.

"Then why are you allowing him to risk oblivion?" Gaepora found his courage to speak.

"My son has already found a way to unblock his own path to ascension." She responded with something like pride. "I may assist him when he needs it, but I cannot fight his battles for him. What kind of a mother would I be if I did? He would remain scared and unable to be the Hero he was born to be. He must have the courage to press on and fight through to the end. I have faith in him that he will succeed in this last quest."

"And my mother?" Gaepora asked.

"You already know what she needs to do before she is able to ascend on her own again. So does she. The question for her is whether or not she's able to truly come to terms with what she needs to do before the end. This isn't a battle I can fight for her either. Not even my son can rescue her this time. She must win this on her own, or else they will both suffer for eternity. I won't allow him to suffer like this any longer."

"How can a mother who claims to love her son be so cruel as to be willing to let him cease to be?" Gaepora's anger was lit within him.

"I am willing to allow this 'because' I love both my son and Hylia." She responded, anger rising in her own voice. "Tread carefully. My grandson you may be, but my patience is not infinite."

"So that's it then. You won't help them." He said. It wasn't a question.

"I 'am' helping both of them, dear boy." She sighed. "As a father you should already know that there are times the best way to help your children is to let them stumble. Let them put their hand in the fire to learn not to get burned. Let them make mistakes to learn from them. There are times the only way to help them is to take your hands off completely and watch as they stand or fall on their own. If you don't, boys will never become men, and girls will never become women. We have aided their continuous re-incarnation for then thousand years because we agreed it was a necessity. Now it is time for them to choose once and for all. When my son and his wife truly need my help, then I will be there for them. Always, my grandson. I have never stopped watching over them and I never will. I can do no less. I am the Hero's mother." She then told him, "Maybe it's time you had as much faith in the Hero and the Princess as Din, Nayru, and I do."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Link found himself floating in a void. He knew this was where he needed to be, quiet and still with all of his mind focused. He wasn't sure of how much time was passing around him. He had been able to leave concern for the time behind as his body sat, and he focused on quieting his mind.

The practice was coming back to him, slowly but surely. It had been millennia, but it was all still there as he went through his mind, trying to undo the bonds which tied him to his mortal existence. Though he knew he was ignoring the most important one; the one which tied him most of all. The idea of letting go of her... Link just couldn't face that yet. He never could face it. Maybe Zelda had been right. Maybe he had to get to the point where he was dying before he could release his final burden.

His attachment for Zelda was holding him back and he knew it, but he just couldn't bring himself to face letting go. Every time he approached it in his mind, so also the fear and doubt grew stronger and he turned away from it, unwilling to go to that darkest of places within himself; an existence without his wife in it. His love for her was too strong for him to be able to say good bye and so he quietly left it alone. Neither pulling it towards him nor pushing it away, but just observing it.

There were other dark places within himself as well. These he had been fighting now for... what? Hours? Days? He really wasn't sure. It could have only been minutes, but it didn't seem like it. Again and again, he saw the face of the man or god who had sworn to curse him for eternity. Again and again, he saw the demon's eyes looking out from the beautiful face of his beloved Zelda. Again and again, he had struggled to let the darkness of his past go, and almost as frequently it found new ways to surface and haunt him.

"Do you really think you can let go of me so easily?" Came a voice from the darkness around him.

He found himself, in his mind, standing in a shallow pool of water which only came up to his ankles. Nearby was a tiny island with a single, dead tree protruding out of it. He knew this place very, very well.

In front of him stood a shadow with glowing red eyes. It was the shadow of a young Hylian man, dressed in dark versions of the Hero's tunic, mail, and gauntlets. Except for the vague darkness of the shadow's outline, it might have been a reflection of Link's younger self.

"I defeated you once before." Link told it. "I can do so again."

"Prove it." Said the shadow. "Draw your sword and let's settle this."

"Link, don't!." A familiar voice called out to him in his mind. "Who?" he asked.

"Ignore that. Draw your sword and face me!" The shadow taunted. "Or are you afraid?"

"Link, that's what he wants." The voice said. "He wants you to engage him, fight him, anything but walk away from him."

His mind knew the call wasn't coming through his body's senses, but it was real. In his mind he shifted trying to discern where it was coming from.

"No! Face me! You know you want to destroy me!" The shadow raised its sword, a dark reflection of the Master Sword in an attack posture.

"It's your fear that keeps you bound to it, Link." The familiar voice told him. "You're afraid of this part of yourself. If you stop fighting and accept it as part of who you are, then the battle will be over."

"I don't want to be that person." Link said, turning his attention back to the shadow. "I don't want to be the darkness."

"It's a part of you just like it's a part of every person. If you reject it, you're only rejecting yourself. In order to let him go, you must first embrace and accept him as a part of yourself." Said the voice.

Link stared at the shadow of himself. "I'm too old for this anymore." He said. He looked deeply into the red eyes of the shadow he had fought with so many times before until... there. Te saw his own eyes staring back at him. "It is me isn't it? It always has been."

Suddenly the shadow, and the pool of water were gone and all that remained was the void he had been in before. "It's all a part of me. Even Ganondorf and the Demon King. That's the reason why they still haunt me. It's because they're still a part of who I am."

"Yes, my old friend." Came the voice. "I need to speak more with you."

"Yes?" The old man answered back. "Who are you?"

"It's Daniel, Link." The image of a younger, Ordonian man with glasses in slacks and a white button down shirt appeared in front of him. "Before you respond," he said, "you need to know I'm not supposed to be interfering. Impa is also here watching over both of you, and me as well, but I'm posing as an aspect of your own unconscious mind so she doesn't know that I'm doing this. We have to keep it quiet." Daniel's voice told him.

"Alright." Link agreed. "Are you here to help me complete my ascension?".

"Not exactly." Daniel told him. "The Three don't want me to interfere and go as far as that. I think I might have already done more than they wanted, and also they want to make sure that once you and Zelda ascend again that it's the last time. In order to do that, they want to make sure you've both fully let go of everything tying you to the mortal planes."

"I've been trying." Link told him. "It's not as easy as it looks." He joked.

The image of Daniel smiled. "No, it never is, my friend." It was a humor that only those who had experienced ascension and incarnation more than once could truly appreciate.

"So, what's all this about then?" The old man asked.

"I can't do any of it for you, I can't just ascend you, but maybe I can help make it a little easier." Daniel told him.

"How?" Link questioned.

"Physically, you have everything you need." Daniel told him. "There's nothing that's holding you back in that way. From what I've seen, your problem is in how you're approaching it. You've been looking to the first time you ascended as Copulus for your guide. But even though Copulus is still a part of you, you haven't really been him for thousands of years."

"That's true." Link agreed. "Sometimes it seems like I don't fully know who I am. In here, I see Copulus, but I also see the shadow, and I see the Hero; from every lifetime I've ever lived, and the time I spent ascended. And then there's this person that I have been for forty five years now, the old goat rancher, father, husband, and grandfather. I wander through every corner of my soul, and I see every person I have been, and I don't know which one is truly me. The ones I draw close to seem to slip through my grasp. The ones I don't want to be rise up and want to drag me into the shadow with them. The best I can do with any of them is just to let them be, and then I have some measure of peace and think I'm making progress. But then I don't know who I am or who I'm supposed to be this time in order to do what needs to be done."

"They are all you, my friend, and none of them are you." Daniel replied.

"The ascended always did excel at cryptic answers." Link returned.

Daniel's image grinned. "True."

"Think back to the last time you ascended; what do you remember about it?" Daniel asked, trying to help guide him.

Link thought back, following his chain of memories. Images flashed through his mind, and suddenly he and Daniel's image were surrounded by the memory. "It was in the Sacred Realm." He said, looking around at the still memory of the inky, acidic blackness around him.

"Yes, go on." Daniel encouraged him.

"Wisdom, power, and courage..." Link brought it to the surface, and they both saw an image of the gleaming golden triangles which symbolized the whole of the modern Hylian faith. It was a hazier memory than it should have been, he thought, but it was coming back to him.

"Impa appeared to me," he said and the image of a tall, younger, muscular warrior woman with long white blond hair tied into a thick, long braid appeared in front of them and began speaking silently, "after I was told about the _trevirti_, the triforce, and how it truly worked. You know, even before I ascended the first time, I didn't actually understand it until Rodney and Impa explained it to me. Neither Hylia nor the others ever really discussed it much with me. Not that science was ever my strong suit."

"And what about the triforce?" The Daniel's image asked, trying to keep him on track.

"It's a belief amplifier. One has to already possess and believe in those virtues in order to use any one piece of the triforce. When fully assembled, it amplifies and bends reality to make it conform to your belief. In the Sacred Realm I focused all of my belief on the three virtues and the one which bound them together." Link said as images and feelings flashed through his mind.

"And what was that?" Daniel asked.

"What binds the three virtues together into one is love." Link said, something stirring within him.

"Do you remember why your parents first came to Hyrule? What is so special about this world, more than any others?" Daniel asked, trying to lead him in the direction of the realizations he needed.

"Hyrule is the nexus, the meeting point between belief and reality more than any other world. It's what they were studying. What you believe becomes your reality. Nowhere is that more true than in this world." Link said, comprehension breaking over his features.

"You discovered something else at that time too, didn't you?" Daniel asked him, and the scene shifted to one of Link standing in the Temple of Time looking at the triforce mark on the back of his left hand as it slowly faded to nothing. And then a golden triangle emerged from patterns of light that flowed from him and fell to the floor.

"Yeah, I did. I realized that I didn't need the device. I already had the three virtues, the whole triforce, inside of me. I only needed to believe it." He said. A light had come on inside of him and around him.

"Exactly." Daniel told him, a look of relieved approval on his face. "Do you understand now, what you need to?"

Link's comprehension grew lighter and more brilliant. "Yes, I think I do."

"I have to go before Impa realizes what I'm doing. Good luck, my friend." Daniel told him.

"Thank you, Daniel." Link told him, and then the ascended being was gone from his mind and he was alone again in the quiet of the void, and then he brought to his mind his last thought, his only thought in the Sacred Realm. It was the one thought and focus which had destroyed the darkness which had threatened his world, and transformed his being. It was the one thought and focus for which he had left everything behind.

From near him came the old question, the one he couldn't ever seem to answer, "But who are you?" And he saw himself reflected in a hundred faces and images. "Do you know who you are? Which one of us?" The reflections all asked in unison.

"I'm all of you." He said, accepting the truth of that statement. "And none of you." And the reflections all merged into a single image as if in a mirror. And then Link walked away from the mirror, and the final reflection faded into nothingness.

"Wisdom, power, courage..." He began to recite within his mind. He believed in each virtue. He knew the truth of the necessity of each. "Wisdom, Power, and Courage are the gifts of the goddesses for us, their children, to live our lives, care for one another, and do what's right." He remembered Impa's words from so long ago. "A person cannot have power without the wisdom to know what to do with it and the courage to actually do it. They cannot be wise without the courage to do what they know is right and the power to be successful in that endeavor. Likewise, they cannot be courageous and powerless to do anything or unwise and do stupid things with their courage*. We ourselves must become the embodiment, the incarnation of the Triforce in order to fulfill their will."

He had to believe. He had to believe in each virtue, and then extend that belief even further. The path of ascension left no room for doubt. Either you believed you would ascend, or you didn't. His mental image of himself began to pulse with light and energy as he let go of each fear and desire one by one narrowing his focus to a single wish, a single thought, a single love.

He brought the one woman whom he couldn't let go of to his mind, and allowed his love for her to fill his being as he narrowed the focus of his contemplation. He reflected that the love was the same, even though the object of that love had shifted once. It was still the same love, and still the same response. It was a love for which he would sacrifice everything, including his own soul. He understood it, accepted it, and welcomed it.

She had been his whole world for many, many lifetimes. He had loved her and cared for her almost since the day they had met as children ten thousand years before. Instead of turning away from it, he clung to the love which grew and expanded and allowed it to flow through him, bringing the three virtues into union bound by it. Then he began his wish, and put the force of his loving belief into that wish. He allowed his love to surround and dominate that wish and with each pulse of that love he let go of each attachment obstructing it. Finally came the object of his love, and in his great love for her he said good-bye until there was only his faith, his wish, and the love which drove and empowered them. And then, the energy which was released filled and transformed his entire being, and all became light.

*Quotation from _The Hyrulean Pantheon_ by Jennie Smith (The Wolfess) and published at the-hyrulian-pantheon/


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

The clock on the wall read 10:24 in the morning when Zelda opened her eyes again. Her stomach had begun to rumble. How long had she been meditating? She couldn't remember when exactly she had begun again. It was some time after she had eaten dinner, and after Link had returned with his own self-revelations.

That was right, Link had returned, she remembered as she looked over to the seat where she had left him before she attempted her meditations again. Her eyes were still a little foggy, but he wasn't in the chair.

Maybe he went to get something to eat, she thought to herself as she looked around the room. On the other side of her bed was a mobile table with two trays of uneaten breakfast on them from Talon's personal chef. She knew it was Talon's personal chef who had prepared her meals, because he had told her outright that he wouldn't subject her to what passed for food from the Hospital's cafeteria. She hated the fuss, but the king wouldn't budge.

No one else was in the room with her as she looked around. Finally, she thought, they've all gotten the hint that I need quiet to concentrate on this. She loved her family, but she hated being treated as though she were somehow fragile or breakable. She had fought her share of battles against the darkness just as much as her husband, though those battles were more often fought with her mind rather than her blade. Still, she couldn't complain. She had a family that loved her in return so much that they hovered around her. That was more than many had.

"It was a good trade." She said to herself contemplatively, thinking of the crown she had given up for the rural life and family of a rancher. Goats were far and away easier to manage than ministers of parliament had ever been, she smiled wickedly at the thought.

There was a knock at her hospital room door.

"Come in." She called out.

The door opened, and a Hylian woman with dark blond hair, forest green eyes, and matching denim shirt and pants with brown leather riding boots came into the room, "Mom?" She asked into the room.

"Oh! Malona! Come in sweetheart!" Zelda called back to her daughter. "I'm so glad you could come!"

The youngest of their three children, Malona had always been something of a tomboy. There had only been once or twice that Zelda had ever seen her daughter in a dress in her life, and that was because it was required in order to be at those events. The forty year old mother had hands whose feminine appearance was betrayed by the hard callouses born from the life of constant work herding goats, raising cuccos, riding horses, and also swordplay with her brothers and father, though it was Ordonville High's archery team that benefited from her natural skills with a bow and arrow. This was a woman who could have been a powerful queen if life had gone differently for all of them, much like her namesake.

"I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner, I had to ask uncle Colin and my boys to look after both properties for a couple of days while I came up here." She said apologetically.

"You don't need to apologize, sweetheart." Zelda told her. "I'm just glad you're here now."

Malona came over to stand near the bed, her eyes fell on the I.V. drip of red water that flowed continuously into the older woman's veins. "So it's true?" She asked, her eyes beginning to water. "What they said. The red water's not going to cure you, is it? It's just barely holding off the cancer?"

"No. It's not." Zelda confirmed for her, her voice calm and peaceful. "Healer Kelli tells me I might have a couple of weeks left."

Malona raised the back of her hand to her eyes and the tears began to flow. "Mom, I..." Her voice trailed off into sobs and Zelda reached out her own arms to her daughter as she leaned over to embrace her mother. "I don't want to lose you." She managed to say. "You're my best friend." She said to the older woman as she stood back up."

"Oh, and you're mine, dear." Zelda told her. "But this happens to everyone sooner or later. If the shadow didn't take me now, it would take me later."

"But not for you, mom. Not for you or dad." Malona protested. "I remember who you are, even if my brothers don't." A quiet fierceness came into her eyes."

"That remains to be seen this time, dear. Your father and I have been trying, but... there are more complications this time." She told her.

Malona looked around the room as if for the first time realizing something. The look in her eyes said something wasn't quite right. "Mom, where's dad?" She asked.

"I think he stepped out for something to eat. I'm not exactly certain. He wasn't here when I came out of my last meditations." Zelda told her.

"The guards said they hadn't seen anyone leave this room since he came in last night." Malona told her. Then the younger woman looked down at the chair on the opposite side of the bed. "Whose clothes are those?" She asked. "They look like dad's."

"What?" Zelda asked as she turned her head to the chair and looked at the seat and back of it more carefully. "Oh." She said. "Oh, my."

There on the seat and back of the chair were laid out the denim and leather clothing of the old goat rancher. Boots, socks, pants, underwear, shirt, undershirt, and coat were all there neatly arranged as though...

"As though he just disappeared from them." Zelda said, finishing her thought out loud but in a whisper. The wheels of her mind turning slowly and methodically as she worked through the possibilities.

"Mom, what happened to dad?" Malona asked in horrified confusion. "Why would dad strip down naked and lay out his clothes on the chair like that? And where would he go?" The expression on her face said it all. She was convinced her father had finally snapped. "We need to search for him!"

Zelda's face became impassive. "Could it be?" She asked herself, not realizing she was speaking aloud. "Did he find a way? And if so, why didn't he tell me when it happened?"

"Could what be?" Malona asked, beginning to worry even more about her mother. "Mom, what are you talking about? What happened to dad?"

"I don't know for certain." Zelda finally said. She then looked up towards the ceiling of the room where there were security cameras installed. "But there's a way to find out."

The black tea from the pot in the R.H.M.G. barracks in North Sariaton was bitter and strong as Gaepora sipped it pensively. The Guard Captain of the station, and all of the guards under his command had been on pins and needles ever since their very high ranking superior had shown up on their doorstep earlier that morning. That was fine with him. It had probably been far too long since they had received a surprise inspection. In reality, while they were busy making sure they sounded official and were doing everything by a book the general could tell they didn't usually follow, Gaepora was lost in his own thoughts as he sipped his tea and waited for his brother.

They had agreed to meet back at this town's barracks to debrief each other because it was almost smack in between both the entrance to the Kokiri's forest and Lake Hylia. Gaepora's grandmother must have been aware of this, he reasoned, because when their conversation was over, she instantly transported him the distance from her temple to the outskirts of Sariaton where it was a ten minute walk to the barracks. That had been several hours before.

Of course she was aware of it, he chided himself, my grandmother's Farore, the goddess of courage. Is there much she _isn't_ aware of?

He was still trying to wrap his mind about the unreality of his new found reality. It was all real. It was all true. And... his grandmother was just going to let his mother die. No, much worse. She was just going to let her soul, the soul which had existed for ten thousand years, be lost forever because she didn't think his mother could just leave things alone like they wanted her to. He couldn't comprehend it. Any of it. And he didn't know what to do next.

His original plan of simply telling his mother a nice comforting falsehood had been blown away by the appearance of a very real goddess explaining the score to him. And the way it sounded to him, the goddess was almost ready to blame all of his father's suffering on the woman who lay dying. What did he do for her now that it was confirmed that a goddess and possibly all Three goddesses were in fact against her? How do you fight the will of one goddess, much less all three?

His head hurt as he rubbed his forehead and took another sip of his tea. It didn't help that he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep in the last twenty four hours. He might have tried grabbing some sleep in one of the spare bunks reserved for guardsmen in transit, but his mind kept replaying the conversation with Farore, dissecting it, turning it over, trying to understand any hidden meanings, any loopholes that he could exploit. There had to be something he could use.

"General, sir!" He heard someone say down the hall. It didn't sound like they were calling for him, but were addressing someone else. He looked up from his silent contemplation anyway and paid attention.

"Has General Faroson arrived yet?" Came a voice not much different from his own, except maybe with a little more steel in it. "Yes, sir. He arrived on foot three hours ago." Came the guard captain's quick, crisp reply. Yes, he had definitely been practicing his military discipline a little more since Gaepora had arrived. Good. Maybe he should make more impromptu visits to random guard barracks, he thought to himself. "Right this way, sir." He heard, and then booted footsteps hit the floor towards the hall. "Uh, we have spare uniforms and foot gear if you need them, sir." The guard captain said to the newcomer.

In the doorway of the office space Gaepora had commandeered, the guard captain appeared and then showed in a man wearing a torn, Zora made wet combat suit. The small flipper moldings on the footwear hit the floor with a light "smack" along with the boot's main tread. The man had some minor scrapes, and deep scratches where the suit had been torn, and a pretty good cut over his head that had stopped bleeding some time before.

"You look like hell." Gaepora observed.

Daphnes stopped, and then nodded his head in agreement. "Remind me to cross the water temple off of my sightseeing list." He then pointed to the plain gray ceramic mug Gaepora was holding. "Is there any left?"

"Yeah, it's over there in the pot." Gaepora motioned towards a counter where a fresh pot of hot tea was still steaming. "Captain Fillio was kind enough to buy donuts for everyone this morning too from the bakery in town."

Daphnes found a clean mug and poured himself some tea, then grabbed a donut and a napkin and came back over to the table where Daphnes sat with his own cup.

"I felt the same way about the Lost Woods by the time I got through it." Gaepora said as Daphnes grabbed a chair and sat down opposite his brother across the table.

Daphnes looked his brother up and down, "You don't look like it, except for a couple of bruises."

"Where?" Gaepora asked.

"Right here." Daphnes pointed to a place on his own forehead near the left temple. "How'd you get away without a scratch otherwise?"

"I didn't need to actually kill anything. The guardians were just doing their jobs like any of us would. I just had to get around them. Although I took a good hit to my chest from a Deku Scrub, and I learned that skull kids have a twisted sense of humor. Looks like you ran into something worse though." Gaepora responded.

"Apparently, according to our maternal grandmother, it was nothing I didn't bring with me." Daphnes told him. "Speaking of which, did you find her?"

"Yeah. I found her." Gaepora replied, his voice quiet but tinged with anger.

"I take it she was just as helpful as Nayru." Daphnes said, taking a sip of his tea, and then breaking off a piece of pumpkin donut, dipping it into the hot beverage, and popping it into his mouth.

"Looks like it. The least Nayru could have done was clean you up. What was in there?" Gaepora asked him.

"Lizalfos having a bad day." Daphnes told him, taking another sip of tea.

"So mom's own mother won't help her?" Gaepora asked. "She won't do anything?"

"Nope. She's the one who decided this. She wants to make sure mom's learned her lesson first before they help her out." Daphnes told him.

"That's what I got from Farore too." His brother said.

"We can't just make something up to tell mom." Daphnes said. "Not now."

"I know. I've been thinking the same thing. But we also can't just leave it like this." Gaepora replied.

"What do you have in mind?" Daphnes said, finishing his donut and washing it down with the rest of his tea.

"Neither grandmother is willing to help at this point. Dad went to go find help from someone else he used to know, I still haven't heard if he's gotten back yet. I haven't communicated with his majesty yet." Gaepora ran through all of the factors he had been considering for the last several hours.

"You know he really is our brother from a different mother, isn't he?" Daphnes asked. "I don't know if I can get used to that."

"I know." Gaepora said, agreeing with Daphnes' sentiment. "But we'll have to square with mom and dad's complicated marital history later. I think we have to assume that, unless dad got a hold of the god he was trying to reach, none of the gods in our world are going to be helpful."

"Agreed." Daphnes said. "Regardless of their own history with them. So mom's options are either she does it all on her own, which they've made virtually impossible, or...?" He left the sentence open for his brother to finish.

"Or we find a way to unblock whatever it is they've blocked and send her skyward." Gaepora said. Now came the explanation as to how. He'd been thinking of it ever since he returned. "And I think I know how, but his majesty isn't going to approve."

"I'm all ears." Daphnes said.

"You up for a trip to another temple? One that's not too far away?" Gaepora asked, a mischievous grin slowly appearing on his face.

Daphnes' expression turned to confusion for a few seconds and then his eyes went wide with comprehension as he carefully considered what he thought his brother was suggesting. "We might end up goat ranchers by the end of it." He finally replied. "If his majesty doesn't shoot us for treason."

"It's for mom." Gaepora reminded him.

"Let me get changed into something more suited to the forest first. We'll need to go most of the way in on horseback, and then get around the fence on foot without being seen." Daphnes said. "And this suit smells like dead lake fish."

"I wasn't going to say anything about it." Gaepora agreed.

The hospital guards had the security footage from the room's cameras sent to the video monitor in Zelda's room. Once the set up was completed, Zelda asked the guards to wait outside while she and her daughter reviewed the footage from the night and early morning before.

Malona was convinced the video recording was going to show her father lose his mind completely and strip down to his birthday suit, but she operated the playback of the recording for her mother who still had trouble sometimes with the newer digital devices. At times she chided her for refusing to learn them better, "Really, mom, you were originally born into a civilization that was even more technologically advanced than we are, and you still can't operate a video player?" But she held her tongue this time out of concern for both her, and especially for her missing father.

The video recording started about five in the morning, and Malona progressed it at high speed from there. At that time of the morning, her father sat in that same chair next to her mother. The both of them appeared to be meditating. As it progressed, neither of them moved from where they sat, stationery, their hands relaxed, their backs straight, their eyes closed. The natural darkness in the hospital room gre lighter and lighter as the morning got later and later. An orderly brought in a tray for breakfast, though neither of her parents acknowledged the man's presence. Then, all of a sudden, there was a sudden flash of light, and her father was gone, leaving only his clothes behind.

"Wait!" Zelda cried out. "Go back to that moment."

Malona dragged the control icon with her finger back across the surface of the monitor to the time index just before the flash, and then she let it play. Once more they watched, in real time, her father sitting calmly. Then his skin began to pulse and glow with light and energy, and then his clothing collapsed empty onto the chair as his form gathered into a brilliant ball of light hovering above the chair, and then it was gone.

"He did it." Zelda said with wonder and a touch of pride. "He did it on his own without my help." Her eyes began to water, but there was a smile creeping across her face. "I'm so happy for you, my love." She whispered as she touched the screen where Link had just been.

"What was that, mom? Farore's wind?" Malona asked. She had only heard the spell described, but she had never seen it in action. "What did dad do?"

"He went home, sweetheart. Your father went home to where we both belong. And I need to join him as soon as I can." Zelda told her.

Malona looked at her mother without comprehension, and then she played the video back again watching the whole thing until what her mother said took root and understanding came. "So, dad's gone then? He's... He's with my grandmothers?"

"Yes, dear. He's with your grandmothers." Zelda confirmed for her.

Malona tried to understand all of the implications of what she was saying. "But if that's true, why are you still here? Why didn't he help you?"

Zelda smiled and said, "If he could have, he would have, sweetheart. I've known your father for a very long time. He would never leave me behind if he had the choice. Maybe there's more going on that you and I can't see than we know."


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

The newly ascended deity kept himself quietly hidden from his peers for the time being. Stealth was a skill he used often in his adventures as a mortal, and one he had learned could be useful in the immortal realms as well. There were places in between dimensions of space where one could secret himself away from other immortal senses. He occupied one of those now. In the three mortal dimensions of space, he remained not far from his mortal wife's hospital room. But there were seven other dimensions which could give him all the distance he needed from the two others that had been watching over them both and were now searching for him. It was a technique that only a very few of the ascended thought to use, though all were aware of it. His peers simply wouldn't think of the need for stealth from one another.

And, he needed time. One would think that an ascended being would have all the time they needed, but he only had a little over two weeks until the dark blighted cancer spread and killed his beloved Hylia in her mortal form. That was how long he had to figure out how to help her, now that he once again had the power to help her, without the others knowing. They still had the power to make him mortal again by force if he didn't play by their rules.

He needed to know exactly what those rules really were. He could sense something wasn't right within seconds of his return to the ascended plane, and he needed to know what and why. He couldn't just pry into the minds of the Three, but those mortals they spoke with, now that was a different matter altogether. Now that he was ascended once more, he was aware of everything the mortals knew, all except the mind of the Sage who was shielded in the protective time displacement field of the Temple of Time. This included the conversations his sons had with his mother and mother-in-law.

Something seemed wrong with them. No, something seemed very wrong with them. He could see clearly his wife's last conversation with her mother from Zelda's own mind. There was something very different about the ascended being who spoke with her then and the one who spoke to his son, Daphnes earlier that day. Gaepora's conversation with Farore was deeply concerning to him. The woman and deity he had known all of his existence loved Hylia like her own daughter. She would never have blamed or found fault with her like that.

After he had ascended, his first thought had been to assist Zelda like he had planned. He had seen the obstructions in her brain keeping her from ascending. He had seen that they could be unblocked with certain events or realizations triggering them, but he couldn't tell exactly what those were supposed to be. Then the wealth of information gleaned from the mortal minds hit him and he knew his plans had to change. If he interfered now, he risked condemning them both.

Daniel had to have sensed something was wrong too, he surmised. He wished he could communicate with Daniel as Daniel did with him, but that would alert the others to his whereabouts and possibly endanger Daniel as well. So be it. He was on his own for the moment. It certainly wasn't the first time that had happened. He knew his friend would be there when he needed him just as much as he knew he would be there for Daniel when the time came.

He wanted very much to communicate with Zelda, but he knew the others would be looking for him to do just that and there would be no way he could conceal it from them like Daniel did, not while she was up and conscious and not with them watching her and looking for him like hawks. He knew that she understood and trusted his reasons whatever they might be from her words to Malona and he was thankful.

He also knew his boys' current plan for saving their mother, and if he knew, so did the others. The real question wasn't how the mortal guards or Talon would respond to their quest, not that they were going to ask for permission, but how would the others respond? Normally, they wouldn't interfere with the choices made by mortals, but his instincts were telling him that nothing about this was normal.

Another question which remained to be answered, where was Din in all of this? Not even her own Sage had seen or had any contact with her for a long time. He knew this from seeing her life open to him. The Three never acted in judgment unless they were agreed. It was something they had done even when they were mortal project leaders doing their research on this world. Both Nayru and Farore had claimed that all three were in agreement, but Din, the one who made the final decisions, remained strangely silent through all of this.

Finally, the thing which told him that something was truly wrong was that both Nayru and Farore had claimed that they wanted to ensure that his wife had let go of needing to protect this world and would remain ascended before she would be allowed to return. That was a bald-faced lie.

None of them could truly know for certain what the future would hold for Hyrule. There were too many variables and unknowns to make accurate predictions, even for the ascended, especially where Hyrule was concerned because it was the nexus of belief and reality with the Sacred Realm at its beating heart. None of them could know what circumstance might arise that would change everything again.

Neither Nayru nor Farore would ever come to the conclusion that this world shouldn't be protected from others that wanted to enslave the mortals. When they had first been re-incarnated, it was by agreement of all the ascended in order to stop Demise. The only reason why the Three hadn't fully joined in the fight themselves was because of the need to maintain the balance and stability of Hyrule from all of the minds which now inhabited it. They had been his close family since the beginning and he knew their minds well enough to know they would be so unreasonable..Zelda and he had more than met Nayru's original conditions.

He had looked into Zelda's mind. He could still see into Zelda's mind clearly. She had let go. She had let go of the instinct to interfere with this world decades ago. She had been content with just being a wife and mother and living her life for a long, long time now, and she had neither the intention nor desire to resume her "interference." Once she gave up the life and responsibilities of a royal, she had found a peace she hadn't known for millennia. He could see it in her heart and mind as clear as day, and the others, especially Nayru, had to have seen it too. Her whole life was an open book to him and to every other ascended being in this galaxy.

If Nayru and Farore were under some kind of dark influence, he reasoned, they were trying to hide it from the others, which meant they weren't going to interfere with mortal affairs any more than would be normal so as not to arouse suspicion. That meant they shouldn't directly interfere with Daphnes and Gaepora's mission to the Temple of Time, even if they were concerned by it. So his boys should be safe from them for the moment, and he knew they could handle getting to the Temple on their own, even on no sleep. They were his boys after all. The bigger issue would be how Fi would respond to them. He would have to speak with her before one of them tried to touch her hilt. That could be done with some discretion. He didn't know if their plan would really be necessary, but at this point he would keep that option on the table until he got to the root of the problem. He couldn't use it himself, but his children could.

After debating on where to begin for some time, he settled on one of his first questions. Where is Din? His instinct told him that somehow the strange absence of the goddess of fire, seasons and power was the key to all of this. But it wasn't a question to which any mind he had free access to had an answer. Could she be in hiding like he was? If so, why? It was as if she just vanished from their reality.

And then he realized, remembering his and Hylia's own colorful history, maybe that's exactly what happened. Then, he knew where he needed to start looking for answers.

Talon hadn't slept since... He couldn't remember. It was some time in the last few days. He knew he had taken a nap at some point in time since the Lady had taken ill, in a chair in her room he was pretty certain. As a Sage he didn't always need the same amount of sleep a normal Hylian did, but the effect was beginning to wear on his seventy something year old body and mind.

After working with his younger father's meditation and practice, he had left him with the Lady alone to give them some peace and time to work. The guards were instructed that no one but immediate family, including himself, was to be admitted to the room with the exception of hospital staff that displayed the highest credentials. And then he went to investigate the thing which was troubling his heart the most.

"Why?"

His faith in the plan of the goddesses had been absolute, and he was certain that his Lady just needed the time to focus and meditate. Then he learned the goddesses had placed obstructions in her mind to keep her from ascending, and he still had faith that once his Lady had let go and released her burden that nothing further would stop her.

But the last time he had been in the room, he had probed her mind to check up on her. He was willing to admit his ignorance on many things pertaining to the will of the divine, but his Lady had been in the proper state of mind for several hours prior to his arrival. She should have ascended before he brought his father in. No one had removed the obstructions.

He loved the Lady. There was no question as to that. He loved her in the same manner that he had loved his own mother who had been her sister in a former life. He would easily give up his own existence if it meant preserving hers. He admitted his lack of objectivity in the matter to himself and tried to work through it again with faith in mind. But the _feeling_ that something was wrong when he realized the blocks were still there wouldn't go away no matter how rational and objective he attempted to be. There was simply no reason for her to still be on the mortal plane. His father... Talon knew he still had many issues to work through before he could take advantage of the gift his friend had given him, but he had faith he could do it. But his Lady, there could truly be no question. She was deliberately being prevented with no just cause that he could see.

He had returned to his mother's tomb to spend time in quiet meditation himself to work through his developing crisis of faith with instructions left to several guards to allow no one access to that area of the royal cemetary. He hated to disappoint the schoolchildren he knew would be expecting to visit the great Queen's tomb, but he needed to draw from his mother's strength alone today as he sat in contemplation. There were times that he had wished she had, in fact, ascended so that he could seek her counsel, but he knew quite plainly that it was only wishful thinking. His abilities as the former Sage of time allowed him to see his mother's final moments in death, and he knew her remains had lain unmoved in the stately, magnificent tomb for over two hundred years.

For the last several hours he had been using those abilities to probe into the recent past. He couldn't see into the immortal realms, but he could see every time one of the ascended had interactions within normal time and space with mortals once they became a part of the past. He had seen the interactions his half brothers had with the goddesses, and his concern for the situation grew exponentially. The goddesses should have been able to see in his Lady what he had seen. Either they were somehow blinded, though he couldn't fathom how, or else they lied. In either event, the outcome was the same. They were going to just let her die, and no matter his faith in the plan of the goddesses, he couldn't accept that. Not for his Lady.

And then he turned his attention back to his father, and he found that he was no longer where he left him. He was no longer anywhere. Looking back through the hours of the day, he could see that his father had in fact been able to ascend, and he was glad, but then... nothing. He was just gone, and this troubled him immensely. He would have assumed his father's first act as an ascended being would be to remove the blocks from his wife's mind so she could join him. But she still remained in the hospital room with his half sister, Malona. Nothing could have stopped the man whom he had talked with the day before from delivering his wife from oblivion. Nothing, except perhaps the other ascended.

So, the question remained, why were the Three preventing the Lady Hylia from returning to her rightful place? And why did they ignore the facts of her release which were plain as day to him as a mere Sage? He didn't have a good answer. He couldn't find one. And the answers that did come to his mind were nothing short of heresy.

The Three are losing their minds.

He didn't know if an ascended being could lose their mind. But that was a more comforting answer than the alternative.

The Three are under the influence of some dark power that seeks vengeance against the Lady and her Hero.

There were list of names of beings with that kind of power and vendetta that came to his mind was incredibly short. Those that did were already destroyed and were not returning from their shallow graves. He searched through the ages of Hyrule's past to discover who it might be, but continued to come up empty. Demise was dead in a foreign reality. The outsider Xehanort was dead by Talon's own hand, his remains incinerated by Din's fire. The other dark wizards and witches of Hyrule's past that he could see... None of them ever held the kind of power that could turn the mind of a god. This led him to another disturbing conclusion.

If the Three aren't losing their minds, then there was yet another dark power from outside of Hyrule's reality, and it was trying to kill the Lady Hylia and the Hero permanently.

That couldn't be allowed to happen. Not while Talon still drew breath.

He needed more information. He focused again on Daphnes and Gaepora and saw their most recent conversation in time. Under other circumstances, it would have been his Sacred Duty to try and stop them. But now...

He sent out a mental call to Mr. Impaz, giving him new instructions to assist the brothers in any way possible. He received back a questioning thought.

"Do as I ask." He replied to the former secretary with the special mental connection only the Sages could know. "Our Lady's very existence may depend on it."

Then he returned to his senses and the world around him and rose from his seated position. He had a call to make to the guardsmen at the Sacred Grove, and a woman to see.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

She appeared with the flash of green light which marked Farore's Wind in front of the doors of Castleton's main hospital. The mature but graceful woman began walking forward slowly, but with purpose not stopping for the simple glass doors of the hospital opened, which opened for her of their own accord. Her pale bare feet made no sound as they padded the tiled floor past patients and healers alike, taking virtually no notice of them. Her purple cloak and cowl hid her middle-aged but supple, pale Hylian features well. Those features held neither smile nor scowl, but were occupied with reaching her destination. The long white and silver braid of her hair were concealed beneath the cowl.

Those who saw her, healers, nurses, and patients alike quickly moved out of her way, eying the unblinking red eye emblazoned across her purple robes tensely and with fear as she moved as silent as the grave among them. Some made signs of faith to ward of the presence of evil, though none dared disrespect her. The guardsmen who were patrolling the hospital on the king's orders found themselves shrinking back and unable to voice a challenge as she glided by. No sane mortal dared to stand in the way of the Sage of Shadow.

The Sage of Shadow was known only by the vague paintings and depictions in sacred artwork. No living citizen of Hyrule outside the other Sages had seen her for as long as anyone could remember. But the eye of the Sheikah which stared from all directions of her robes was unmistakable. It was a symbol associated with a past so dark that few would display it openly. Even the location of the temple which was the service and residence of the Sage was shrouded in more mystery and dark tales than any other. Not even the highest levels of the R.H.M.G. knew where it was, but only the king himself and, supposedly, the lady who was dying in the king's personal suite. Only rumors and ancient myth served as a guide for the unwitting adventurer.

She could hear the quiet weeping as she passed by patients and visitors. It didn't please her. She had no interest whatever in harming them or their loved ones, but centuries of rumor and bedtime stories about her and her predecessors couldn't be undone even if she did have the time or inclination to stop and explain that she was not the harbinger of the shadow of death, just its guardian and servant.

The aura she projected was such that when she passed by, it felt as if the Shadow itself was coming to take you, and more than one new mother in the hospital clutched her child tight as she saw the pale woman in the purple cloak pass. The slight rush of wind created by the passing of her cloak felt cold, as if death stalked the corridors.

Shakanah didn't need anyone to tell her where the fallen goddess' suite was as she took the elevator to the highest floor. As she entered the small boxlike room she studied the modern, computerized controls. It had been some time since she had dealt with such modern technology.

"I do not have time for this nonsense." She said in frustration. She touched the control panel with a finger tip and a pulse of dark light flowed from her hand into the system. The elevator obeyed her silent instruction and began moving skyward, regardless of the pass code and key it required to do so. She needed to reach the king's suite where the fallen goddess was receiving treatment. It was not just the goddess however that she needed to speak with, rather it was also Shakanah's former peer, Talon.

The elevator stopped on the highest floor it was capable of and opened up onto an elegantly decorated hallway which looked as though it was better suited to the Royal Castleton Hotel than than the city's hospital. At the other end of the hallway stood four guardsmen in dress gray uniforms. Their eyes were fixed intently on the unauthorized intruder they had been warned about, uncertainty and fear filling those eyes as they lowered their loaded weapons, barrels trembling but aimed in her direction.

Terror spread across their faces, but to their credit, they did not move from their posting. Courage and determination in the face of the inevitable. Impressive, she thought to herself. Futile, yes, but impressive all the same.

"H-halt, yo..your grace. N-no one is allowed in-inside by order of h-his maj-majesty." The lead guardsman managed to stammer out. He looked as if he would wet himself as he attempted to stare into her face. "E-especially those who hide their faces." He told her.

Shakanah drew back her purple cowl with her hands to reveal her nearly flawless, deathly white skin and braided, silver white hair. Her beautiful, haunting eyes were deep purple. "Is that better?" She asked, knowing the effect her appearance, even at her age, could have on even the strongest of men. The dark mixture of fear and desire on the faces of the men was apparent as she radiated the Shadow's aura.

"I have a need to speak with his majesty and her excellency. This is something which cannot wait." She told the guard who challenged her. "I know they are both within this room."

The guardsmen looked lost. "Your grace," he said stiffening up, "Our orders were to allow family members of her highness only. Those orders were from his majesty himself."

Shakanah considered this, then she asked, "Do you know what I am capable of doing to those who displease me, guardsman?"

"I can imagine, your grace." The guard replied, the tremors in his hands visible to all present.

"No. You can't." She said with a tone of authority that allowed for no argument. "I have no time for this, and neither does the Lady Hylia within." She said and began to raise her thin white hands pulsing with dark energy as the guardsmen shrank back in terror.

"Let her through, guardsmen." The aged voice of the king came through clear and strong over the radio, loud enough for everyone to hear. "The Sage has my permission to enter."

Shakanah dropped her hands and the guardsmen cleared out of her way as she opened the door to the hospital room. "Perhaps the next time, gentlemen." She said ominously as she passed them. "One way or the other, everyone crosses my threshold eventually."

The woman stepped into the room where the aged king sat next to the woman he had called goddess, neice, and aunt. "Almost everyone." She corrected herself. She looked around the room, having expected a third living presence. Strangely, the Hero was not where she assumed he would be.

"The Hero is not present? Your last message said he had returned alive from his quest." Shakanah asked Talon as she came to stand next to the bed.

"He has returned. He reclaimed his place among the gods this morning." Talon responded. "We have not heard from him since."

Shakanah considered this unexpected development. "And he has not assisted you in returning as well, my Lady?" She addressed the aged woman on the bed. "How unlike him." She said contemplatively.

"I assume he has his reasons, your grace." Zelda responded.

"Indeed." Shakanah returned thoughtfully. "I am certain that he does."

"It isn't often the Sage of Shadow leaves her temple." Talon observed. "What news could bring you to walk among the living rather than communicate through our link?" Talon asked her amiably, as one equal to another.

"It concerns our Lady's late father. It seemed something that I believed she should hear." Shakanah responded.

"My father? You mean king Daphnes?" Zelda responded.

"Yes, of course. Allow me to clarify; your most recent, late father, my Lady. I suppose it is easy to confuse considering how many there are. I have had discourse with all of their poes since I was chosen as Sage of Shadow."

"Great and wise men in life, your grace." Zelda replied.

"No less in the peace of death, my Lady." The Sage agreed. "And your late father Daphnes Johnson has been no exception. No exception, that is, until recently."

"I don't understand." Zelda replied.

"Your late father's poe entered the shadow realm several years prior to my awakening as the Sage of Shadow, but for as long as I have known him in this way, he has been wise, kind, and strong. But over the last several years, I have noticed the progress of a change come over him." Shakanah told them. "It is unlike anything I have seen among any of the shades of Hyrule."

"Why have you not brought this to our attention before?" Talon asked.

"An error in judgment on my part," the Sage of Shadow conceded. "It does not always occur to me to trouble the living with matters pertaining to the dead."

"Please, continue." Zelda told her. "What has happened to him?"

"Of course, my Lady." The Sage responded. "His poe has become..." She searched for the word to describe what she had sensed and seen, "cold, my Lady."

"Cold?" Zelda repeated.

"Unfeeling. Cold. There is a shadow which has grown within his poe which is unnatural even for the Shadow Realm. It has grown dark and continued to grow darker day by day as I have watched. Several hours ago, he disappeared from my sight." Shakanah's voice grew deathly quiet and concerned.

"How is that possible?" Talon asked. "All the Realm of Shadow is under your oversight. All poes are visible to you."

"I do not know." The Sage of Shadow replied, the anxiety in her voice bleeding through in spite of her attempted calm demeanor. "But the former king's poe retained the powerful magic which had been a part of his being, even though separated from his body. It is a powerful magic now at the mercy of the darkness which has consumed his poe. In truth, I do not know what his dark shade is capable of."

"My father never used magic in all of his life." Zelda told her disbelievingly. "He preferred things he could understand."

"Be that as it may, one's use or understanding of magic has little to do with one's capability for magic, as you well know, my Lady." Shakanah corrected her. "Being of the bloodline he was, King Daphnes had the capability to be a powerful and dangerous sorcerer had he chosen to pursue that in life."

"But, I still don't understand," Talon said. "How could he not be within your sight? He would have to have left the Shadow Realm and returned to the realm of the living. His body remains where it has been decomposing for forty five years."

"Then he would have needed to take another, living body." Shakanah continued his thought.

"Surely the gods would not permit such an atrocity." Talon said in disgust.

"One would think." Shakanah agreed.

"They wouldn't." Zelda agreed, but then she continued a sick realization coming to her, "if they could see it."

"What do you mean?" Shakanah asked, confused. "What can the gods not see or know?"

"The souls of the dead, your grace." Zelda replied soberly. "The ascended can't know the mind of a soul that has no body. Only one who lies in between ascension and the grave can sense them. And if the darkness has taken hold of the power which resides within his poe..." The old woman paused to gather her thoughts from her memories. "He has become a danger not just to those on this plane, but those on the immortal plane as well."

Another presence in the room felt even more unease and concern at this new revelation. One for whom all of their minds should have been as an open book the minute he came through the linking book.

"Why didn't I know about this?" Daniel asked himself after hearing the conversation. "Regardless of the thing with the dead, I should have known about this as soon as Shakanah knew."

The ascended being had remained in the room to observe Zelda long after he and Impa had watched the Hero's re-ascension together. Impa's face was radiant with joy for those few brief seconds, and then became twisted in confusion as he vanished within seconds. She gave no indication to him that she was aware of any "help" on his part, and he betrayed nothing. If she was aware, then her silence to him was her unspoken consent.

"For that matter, why didn't Impa know about it?" He asked himself again, thinking it through. "If she did, she certainly didn't let it slip." It opened up a whole new realm of problems and possibilities to his mind. The first of which was, "How much else are we not aware of?"

He had always assumed that those who had died without ascending just ceased to be. Did the Others in his own reality know that there was more? If any of them did, they kept it close to the breast, so to speak. The implications for those he had known in his own life and existence were staggering to him, but he didn't have the time to worry about them right then.

There was another thing which had been bugging him as well. Why did Link just vanish after he shed his mortal form? No "thank you", no acknowledgment of his presence, no consultation with Impa and he about Zelda's plight. Nothing. It had confused him just as much as Impa

One thing was becoming clear to him, however. The rules of the game weren't what he had been led to believe, and one of his friends' very soul was at stake. He needed to find out what the rules really were, and quickly.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

The canyon extended for several miles through the Faron woods and backed itself up almost to the region of the Kokiri forest known as the Lost Woods. It was one of the several areas of wilderness in Hyrule which had been designated by the government as not only protected, but forbidden to all but authorized personnel. The Sacred Grove was not named such without reason, and the gods guarded what belonged to them. The designation of "forbidden" was meant not so much for the protection of the area as it was for the poor fools who might attempt to enter and find themselves never coming out again.

The security fence which walled off the entry point into the ledges, bridges, and elevators of the canyon where the entry to the Grove was found didn't extend all the way around the canyon. It only went for about a kilometer or so across a break or depression in the natural canyon walls near the temple which had been hollowed out of an ancient great tree by a race of sentient monkeys, now long ago passed into the pages of Hyrule's long history. Extending the fence around the entire canyon was unnecessary for the R.H.M.G. because of the enchantments laid on it by the goddess of the forest. This proved to be a very good thing for the royal engineer corp. Because what made it unnecessary also made it impossible for the corp for all practical purposes, and at the counsel of the Sage of Forest any plans to build a defensive perimeter deep into the forest had been abandeoned. The other sides of the forest which surrounded the canyon and the Grove had been charted, but only at the risk of the cartographer's life and sanity and only with the blessing and protection of the Sage.

The maps which resulted were kept solely in the hands of the R.H.M.G. to be released by the orders of a commanding general or person of higher rank in the event they might be needed in a crisis. The two brothers decided that their mother's current situation constituted a crisis of necessary proportions and took the Sariaton barrack's copy of the map they needed as well as fresh horses and provisions without explaining themselves to the barracks' captain. That was one of the privileges of their high rank. They didn't need to explain themselves to virtually anyone except his majesty. And they had hoped to be well on their way before he became aware of their transgressions.

If they could have, they would have skirted around the entry ledge and canyon altogether and dropped into the Grove from the opposite side where it shouldn't have been nearly as steep, or as far to fall. But they both knew that was impossible. The cartographers that had gone looking for the backside of the Grove never returned from their mission, and no attempts to identify the features of the Grove from the air using gyrocopters ever bore fruit either. It was a part of the enchantments laid on the sacred space. There was only one entrance and exit from the Grove, and it happened to be carved into a steep canyon wall.

As they had passed through the forest, they had to tread carefully through the narrow strip marked by the abyss of the canyon on one side and the cool, green, mystery that was the Lost Woods on the other. They could hear the carnival like playing of Farore's ocarina drift through the trees for hours, beckoning them further in. Given their last interactions with either of their grandmothers, although both felt the light, joyful calling of the music, neither of them strayed from their course to follow it. If Farore was trying to distract them from their purpose, she was going to have to do better than that. They both had a pretty good, educated idea of what new playmates might await them just beyond the canyon's edge. As long as their horses remained within sight of the canyon, they would remain on track. If their grandmother wanted them to stop, she would have to stop them herself.

It was dark as Gaepora and Daphnes rappelled down the side of the canyon to the ledge which marked the entry way of the most forbidden area in all of the United Kingdom of Hyrule. The journey on horseback had taken them most of the day and part of the night to skirt the security fence altogether to come to the point where this descent could even be possible, if not probable. They counted themselves fortunate that their grandmother's lulling music was the only challenge they had to contend with, though it would have been easy enough for her to drop them and their horses off the side of the cliff they skirted. Apparently, she didn't want them stopped so badly she would kill them to do it. So they had that in their favor at least.

They would be facing their own men, they both knew. More to the point, they would be facing men they had both hand picked to guard the Grove. If not exactly friends, they were all trusted, loyal colleagues, ready to give their lives in the service of their kingdom, and to defend that kingdom from all enemies, foreign and domestic. With what the brothers were now doing, they both knew they would fall into the latter category as far as their men were concerned.

With that in mind, they carried standard issue enchanted swords and shields, but otherwise only non-lethal weapons usually used for policing and crowd control. In particular, electrically and magically based stun weapons which could stop a large man cold with no more permanent damage than a nasty headache. It was a much safer weapon to use against "friendlies" than the ancient ice magic based projectiles their father had used in many past lives.

They slipped silently down the sidewall of the canyon to the ledge, night vision glasses lighting their way. They both knew there should be at least two guards stationed on this side of the bridges. Two good men they were going to have to incapacitate quietly in order to move forward. Neither was looking forward to it.

"It's for mom." Daphnes had told Gaepora when he looked uneasy at the plan. "And for dad."

"Yeah, I know. It's for them." He agreed back in the barracks several miles distant.

They both pulled out their stun guns at the same time while clinging to the rope which was their lifeline against certain death in the abyss below and aimed it towards the ledge, studying the space intently, waiting for the guards to come into sight. It shouldn't be long, the ledge wasn't that wide. They waited.

But no guards came into sight for several minutes as they clung to the ropes and harnesses. Daphnes signaled Gaepora using battlefield hand signs, "Where are they? Do you see them?"

Gaepora gave the signs for "No. No one."

Daphnes holstered his stun gun and cautiously crept along the canyon face to the ledge. There was still no one there. He then jumped onto the ledge and got underneath the rock overhang quickly, being careful to remain out of sight of the spotters that he knew should have been watching the opening. He brought the stun gun out again quickly and was ready to use it. But there was no one to use it on. The checkpoint was deserted. Seeing that his brother met no resistance, Gaepora rapidly joined him, ducking under the overhang to be out of sight.

"Where is everyone?" Gaepora whispered to his brother. "There should be at least two here and two just inside the entrance."

"I don't know." Daphnes responded. "There should be men here even during a shift change, and that's not supposed to happen for several hours. Something's not right."

Gaepora nodded in agreement looking around him. "No bodies. No signs of a struggle. Barring magic use, it looks like they just up and left."

"They wouldn't do that. Not without orders." Daphnes said. "None of them." There was a certainty about the declaration that brooked no argument. And Gaepora wouldn't have given one anyway, except for the evidence, or lack thereof around them.

"So what do we do? Do we investigate their absence, or do we go forward?" Gaepora asked. It was a more than legitimate question. The Grove's security fell under their oversight.

"You mean 'what's more important, the Grove or mom and dad?'" Daphnes replied.

It didn't take long for Gaepora to respond. "Right. Let's get going. We'll write up their extended coffee breaks later."

The rest of the Grove's wooded passages and checkpoints were the same, empty, as they crept through it from cliff enclosed section to cliff enclosed section. It had once been guarded by a skull kid, one of the enigmatic magical peoples that made their home in the Lost Woods. But the original guardian had been brutally killed centuries before by an ancient enemy. The royal military had taken over guardianship not long after under the Hero's direction and had kept the best of its highly trained special missions guards to secure the Grove ever since because of the sensitive nature of the site. Neither Hyrule nor any realm connected to it could afford the temple which lie within to be compromised. They knew and understood this from far too many painful experiences.

The Temple of Time was built over a kind of nexus, a meeting point between belief and reality that occurred nowhere else as strongly as it did in Hyrule. It protected that nexus through several measures which were taken. The guards and the Grove were only one of them. The temple itself was another.

As Gaepora and Daphnes approached the site of the temple, they were reminded forcefully of the extra-dimensional nature of the place. The only site which greeted anyone fortunate enough to make it this far was ancient ruins. The roof and stone sidewalls of the temple had given way long, long before and the central hall of the temple had been exposed to the ravages of time, the elements, and the creep of the forest. The only thing which stood strangely untouched was a stone and metal frame which once housed ornate double wooden doors. Anyone who did not know or understand the nature of the protections laid on this place would believe it was just a ruined pile of stones and termite ridden wood and there was nothing further to be had. And for all intents and purposes, they would be right. That is all that would be available to those trespassers who came either ignorant or uninvited.

As the two Hylian men stood before the door frame, they began to wonder if they were the former as well as the latter in this case. Though having been thoroughly briefed in time past by the king himself about the temple, this was the first time they had actually been at the temple site.

"Are you kidding me?" Daphnes asked. "There's nothing here."

"Yeah, sure looks like it. But you remember what his majesty told us about it. The functional temple's not present within normal time. You've got to pass through the active door frame. It's the only way in or out for anyone, even the gods." Gaepora reminded his older brother. "But the first thing we want, we don't need to get in for just yet. It should be accessible regardless of whether we're within the temple's altered time field or not."

Gaepora pointed in the direction of north, just beyond where two massive bronze doors had been broken off of their hinges centuries ago and lay in ruins to the sides. There in the dark with the night vision glasses he could just make out a pedestal with steps that led up to it and a silvery object standing straight up from it.

"Right." Daphnes said. "We grab the Master Sword and then take it into the temple itself." He said as he stepped away from the door frame and went to the sides where a crumbling staircase offered a precarious way down into the ruined great hall. "From there we re-insert it into the pedestal of the 'internal' temple and that should give us access to the Sacred Realm and the Triforce. We wish for mom and dad to ascend, they do, and we go home to face the consequences. Sounds simple enough."

Gaepora shook his head, "I wish it was." He said as he joined him on the staircase, descending down to what was once a marble floor now caked with centuries of moss and dirt. The brown remains of tiny shoots of grass and wild flowers trying in futility to grow and spread among the cracks in the disintegrating stone floor lay scattered as winter tightened its grip. "There's still the matter of the Artificial Intelligence in the sword allowing us to take it from the pedestal. It has to recognize us from the DNA markers or the one who touches it is fried. The only people it was ever supposed to recognize is either mom or dad. There's no guarantee it will let us take it, much less let one of us go with both hands still attached." Gaepora remembered what Talon had told him concerning his own hubris in trying to claim the sword for himself, and the centuries he had lived without his left hand.

Daphnes had no answer for that just yet as he and his brother made their way across to the fallen bronze doors. The truth was it was a problem he'd been trying to figure out since they left the barracks in Sariaton, just like his brother he surmised. He still didn't have a good answer except to hope that his and his brother's combination of the Hero's and the Princess' DNA would be enough to convince the AI to not deprive one of them of his dominant hand. In short, he was hoping for some kind of miracle. In a struggle against gods, he figured a miracle was the only way they were going to win.

Looking up through the doorway with the night vision glasses, Daphnes could see the stairs which led up to the platform where the pedestal which held the sacred blade was kept. Except...

"Hey, Gaepora, I think my glasses are having issues. Can you zoom in on the pedestal up there and tell me what you see?" He asked his brother.

Gaepora put his right hand to the side of his glasses and began to adjust the zoom so as to see the pedestal at the top clearly.

"Do you see what I don't see?" Daphnes asked him.

"No. I mean yes. I mean, where did it go?" His brother responded. "The pedestal's empty."

"That's what my glasses were telling me too." Daphnes said, starting quickly upwards on the stone steps. Gaepora followed after him.

The pedestal was in fact empty as they reached the ruined chamber. They could both see the slot where the sword had rested clearly.

"Could you have made a mistake?" Daphnes asked his brother in frustration. "Is it possible that's not what you saw from the door frame?"

"Oh no, he saw the Master Sword, Daphnes." A familiar female voice answered his question from the shadows near the steps behind them. "I just got to it first."

Daphnes turned around so fast in surprise that he nearly did a pirouette. "Malona?!" He said in surprise, louder than he had intended to. "What? How? Why? What did you...?"

The woman in front of him with long dark blond hair tied back into a pony tail looked nearly identical to her mother who still lay in the hospital in Castleton, except of course she was over twenty years younger. She wore a heavier green and brown leather jacket over a green denim workshirt, and matching denim pants. On her feet were black tactical boots. In her left hand was the sapphire blue hilt and silvery blade which had been their objective.

"It's good to see you too big brother." Malona responded. "Fi and I came to a mutual understanding a few minutes ago." She said, nodding to the blade in her hand. "I'll fill you in on the details once we're inside the temple proper."

The inside of the temple felt... strange. That was the best way Malona could describe it. It felt almost disjointed or out of synch in some way as she and her brothers stepped through the portal into the "real" temple. His majesty had failed to warn her of that when he quickly briefed her on what he needed her to do.

"My dear sister," he had begun as he spoke to her outside of the hospital room, out of her mother's hearing. She had always liked his majesty, though it was strange to see him as a brother. He was more like a strange but favorite uncle that she rarely got to see growing up except on the television. "Malona, my dear, I must ask you to do something which could put your life at risk. But if you don't, your brothers may find their task much harder than it need be."

"Of... of course, your majesty." She had responded. What else does one say to the most powerful man in all of Hyrule? Never mind their strange fraternal connection.

"I have already placed the necessary calls to the command post in the Sacred Grove to rescind my previous orders and to issue new ones regarding your brothers," he told her, though she had no idea what those previous orders might have been, "who I believe are going to attempt to access the Sacred Realm in order to use the Triforce to help your mother."

Malona hadn't been able to respond to that with anything but silence. She knew her father's stories as well as anyone, perhaps better than her brothers. She knew all that this meant.

"In order to do that, they are going to need to pull the Master Sword from the pedestal outside of the inner temple and take the sword inside." He told her. "As the generals charged with the security of the Grove, they already know all this. What none of us knows is how Fi will respond. She was originally programmed to only accept the Hero's and the Princess' DNA signatures. Her programming has been altered over the centuries to accept other signatures which still carry the same markers, but that list is very narrow and specific and it has been a long time since anyone other than the Hero or the Princess has attempted it. As a matter of fact, I was the last person to try forty five years ago. Your brothers and you should meet Fi's criteria, but I am concerned that one of the goddesses might have reprogrammed her in the last forty five years to forbid your father or mother from taking any action that was prohibited them."

"So what do you want me to do?" She had asked him in confusion. "It sounds like I'll be taking my chances just as much as they will."

"More than your brothers, you resemble your mother the most. You are the spitting image of her when she was your age, and you always have been. When I noticed this many years ago, out of mere curiosity I quietly had a DNA test performed to compare yours and your mother's genetics. When the test came back, the lab asked if I had sent them two samples from the same person. Except for some very minor variances, they were nearly identical."

"How is that possible?" Malona had asked, stunned.

"I honestly don't know. There has always been a strong family resemblance among the female descendants of my Lady. I always believed that was because my Lady had always arranged it that way every time she reincarnated into this world. But the tests I had performed suggest there is more to it than that. As my Lady has been bound to mortal flesh since before you were born she could not have had anything to do with it herself. When I ran the same tests between your father and your brothers as a control they came back as one might expect, a father and two brothers. But where your genetics are concerned, my dear, you and your mother are identical twins."

"So you want me to attempt to draw the sword before my brothers get there?" She asked jumping ahead of him.

"Yes." He had said simply. "Assuming that Fi's programming hasn't been altered, you alone have the best chance of being recognized by her."

"And if it has?" She asked.

"That is why this is a terrible risk I am asking you to take." He had said.

It hadn't taken Malona long to decide. She loved her brothers. She loved her father and mother dearly. She didn't know why her dad hadn't immediately helped her mother, but her mom was right. The man she knew would have gone into the shadow and back for the woman lying in the hospital room. She knew that because he had proven that over and over again. If he hadn't yet helped her, it was because it was impossible for him to do so.

Once the three of them had stepped inside of the true Temple of Time, she had quickly brought her brothers up to speed on his majesty's machinations to get her to the sword, and get the guardsmen out of the way, before they arrived.

"Fi recognized me as mom at first," she explained, "just like Talon hoped she would. Then I had to explain who I really was and why I needed her help."

"And she agreed?" Daphnes asked. "Just like that?"

Suddenly the image of a surreal looking blue and silver young woman appeared before them in the hall near Malona. "Of course I agreed." She told them. "Master Link gave me specific instructions to allow any one of his two sons or one daughter access."

"He did?" Gaepora asked her in disbelief. "When did he do that?"

"According to my internal clock, approximately three hours and twenty seven minutes ago." Fi responded.

"Wait, dad was here? Three and a half hours ago?" Daphnes asked. "How is that possible?"

"You didn't tell them, Mistress Malona?" Fi asked innocently.

"Tell us what?" Gaepora demanded from his little sister.

"Dad ascended after eight o'clock this morning. Mom and I caught it on the surveillance cameras. One minute he was sitting in a chair, the next he was transformed into a glowing ball of light and then he was gone." She told her brothers, her eyes beginning to water a little at the memory. Fi quietly vanished and retreated back into the depths of the blade.

"Dad's gone?" Daphnes asked. "He's really gone?" He looked like a man who'd been struck in the stomach at the news.

"He's not gone." Malona corrected him strongly. "He ascended. He returned to the plane the gods dwell on, just like he told us when we were kids."

Tears came to Gaepora's eyes as the impact of the news settled on him. "Dad..." He whispered. "Wait, what about mom?" He asked.

"She's still in the hospital." Malona said. "Her condition hasn't changed."

"Well, couldn't dad help her?" Gaepora asked. "Couldn't he bring her with him?"

"Neither his majesty nor mom knows what happened, or why he hasn't done it yet." Malona told them both. "But this is the man who lived and died hundreds of times and fought the Demon King himself in order to protect her. Do you really believe that he wouldn't have if he could have?"

Gaepora shook his head. He knew how close his dad had always been to his mom.

"That's why his majesty wanted your plan to have the best chance to succeed." Malona told them both as she crossed the marble and gold floor of the temple's great hall, Master Sword in hand. "He's afraid something's not right with the three goddesses. Something's blinding them to mom's real disposition or something, and he didn't know what it was when he talked to me."

Across the hall were the steps they had just come down in the regular flow of time which ran outside of the temple. Malona strode towards them with a purpose and her brothers followed after her. "His majesty said all we needed to do was to insert the sword into the pedestal again and that would bring whoever was standing close by into the Sacred Realm." She said.

"As far as we know." Daphnes replied. "That's what he told us too. Beyond that it's anybody's guess."

She motioned for them to follow her up the steps right behind her. As they reached the top, they all stood around the pedestal. "Ready?" Malona asked her brothers.

"As we're going to be." Gaepora responded.

"Do it." Daphnes told his sister.

Malona took the sword in both hands and pointed the tip of the blade into the thin opening in the pedestal, and then shoved down hard, locking the Master Sword into the pedestal. Immediately a wave of blue energy swirled up and around the three siblings, and then they were gone.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Malona suddenly found herself standing alone in between her parents' house and their barn south of Ordonville. She could see the outline of the woods surrounding the property, the pasture which was strangely empty of livestock, and the road down the driveway just beyond the fence as she turned sround. But it all seemed so wrong. The woods, the grass, and the deku trees which were scattered around the property were all green and leafy. The last time she had seen this place, all of their leaves had fallen to the ground with the onset of winter. Around her, it looked to be a bright, moonlit night, but she looked to the sky and there was nothing there. There was neither moon nor stars to give the place the soft silvery light which seemed to bathe it.

As she looked down, she appeared to be standing on a kind of circular pad or base surrounded by what looked like petals from a flower made of pure, soft light. In the center of the circular pad was the imprint of a single golden triangle.

It felt quiet, completely silent as she looked around herself. She called out for her brothers, "Daphnes?! Gaepora?!" But there was no sign of them.

"There is no one else here with you, Mistress Malona." Came Fi's voice from somewhere, though as Malona turned around and around, she couldn't see her holographic image or the Master Sword itself anywhere. "And I am only present in your mind." Fi explained.

"Where am I?" Malona asked, trying to keep the panic in her voice under control. "Where are my brothers?"

"Based on previous data recorded, there is a ninety percent chance you are experiencing a Silent Realm trial. There is an equal chance your brothers are experiencing the same, though I have no contact with their minds at present, so I have no way to verify this." Fi's voice told her.

"We were supposed to be transported into the Sacred Realm." Malona said. "All of us together. We were supposed to be finding the Triforce to help our mother."

"Based on my previously recorded data from Master Link, one does not casually or easily obtain the Triforce from the Sacred Realm. Master Link suffered through many trials in our many journeys together. The goddesses imposed trials to test the hearts of those who would seek the Triforce to ensure they possessed the three virtues in balance." Fi explained. "Master Link was tried and tested many times. If you and your brothers seek to use the Triforce, then you must be tested. Only when you have proven yourself will you be permitted to reach the Triforce."

"Why aren't we together?" Malona asked, trying to understand her new situation.

"There are three hearts and minds to test. Each person's test is unique to them." Fi responded.

Malona nodded in understanding. "So what do I do now? How am I to be tested?"

"I have no data to formulate an answer, Mistress Malona." Fi told her. "I calculate a seventy eight percent chance that this is highly dependent on the subject being tested. If this information is useful, my records indicate Master Link's test involved avoiding guardians of the Silent Realm and collecting fragments of spirit called 'tears of a goddess' in order to test his courage, wisdom, and power. He was subjected to this test four times by the machinations of the goddesses Farore, Din, Nayru and Hylia. However, I do not detect a similar test being conducted in your case."

"So I go in blind?" Malona asked.

"I wish you the best of luck, Mistress." Fi answered, as though her question had been rhetorical.

"Thanks." She said, not without a bit of irony, which Fi didn't seem to pick up on. "When does the trial begin?" She asked.

"As soon as you step off the pad." Fi responded. "And I must warn you, Mistress. I won't be able to continue to contact you once you do until you complete your trial."

"Great." Malona said under her breath, looking around her. "I'm just a farm girl," she said to herself as she took in all the details of her surroundings that she could see. "What in the shadow am I doing here?"

Nearby she could see ghostly figures wandering along various paths. There were also puddles of what looked like silvery water all over the place, like it had just had a heavy spring rain. It looked as though they might be patrolling. "Fi? Are you still there?" She called out.

"Yes, Mistress Malona." Fi's voice came quickly.

"What are those figures out there?" She asked, pointing to one that was uncomfortably closer to her than she would like. "And what's all the water on the ground?"

"I calculate a sixty seven percent chance those figures are guardians of the Silent Realm, Mistress. I do not recommend that you allow them to catch you, otherwise you will fail your trial." Fi responded.

"And the water?" Malona asked again.

"Pools of awakening. If you touch the water, the guardians which are stationary will awaken and attempt to catch you." Fi responded. "It will alert all the guardians to your presence."

"Right, because we don't want this trial to be easy." She muttered, looking at all of the water which was splashed around her. She didn't know if she could leave the pad without stepping in it.

Studying the ground around the pad she spied a small patch that looked dry that she could just fit her booted foot on. Lifting her right foot she set it gingerly on the patch, and then the pad disappeared out from underneath her and she was alone.

The ghostly figure nearest her solidified somewhat into the familiar shape of a Royal Family Protection guard dressed in a black suit and sunglasses. She had known many of the guardsmen assigned to her family since she was very little. The fuzzy form of this man looked so familiar to her, but she couldn't place who it might be. He seemed to be pacing aimlessly, and had taken no notice of her. He didn't really appear to be taking notice of anything.

"Don't draw attention to yourself, Malona." She told herself as she looked around her surroundings again, trying to figure out where she should go next.

"What're you here for, lady?" She asked herself. "I'm here to help mom." She answered her own question. "So what is here that will lead you in that direction?"

She looked towards the old house which she had grown up in. Her parents had spent years restoring it with their own hard work and sweat, and she had never heard her mother say she wanted to live anywhere else, even the palace where she herself had grown up. Is that where she needed to go? She balanced carefully if somewhat awkwardly, on the dry patches of ground where she stood, her native Hylian sense of balance keeping her upright between them.

She then looked towards the barn and wondered. The door to the barn was slid halfway open. There had been only one other on the property that could have possibly loved her mother as much as her father. Could he be here? Could he lead Malona where she needed to go?

She carefully took her left foot and found another dry patch of ground to stand on. Plotting out her steps, she headed for the barn where she wondered if he too was here in some way. There was a guardian in her path, but like the other, he was patrolling in a kind of half-hearted daze. She timed her steps along her dry path to coincide with the guardians, and at the right moment, she ran for it, her light feet barely touching the ground even in the heavier tactical boots she wore.

The guardian's back was turned as she slipped by him and through the half open barn door. No alarm was raised as she surveyed her new surroundings. A silvery light bathed the inside of the otherwise darkened structure, though she still couldn't tell from where the light came as she moved across the straw laden floor. At least in here she noticed, there was no alarm raising water. The question of the moment, was he somehow here?

She moved through the large structure until she passed in front of Malon's stall, but her father's mount was nowhere to be seen. That didn't give her any hope. Maybe I'm wrong, she thought as she passed over to Big Man's stall.

But there in his stall stood her mother's gelding, and the only other "man" on the property who could have possibly loved her mother as much as her father did. Except, he didn't look quite like Big Man. This horse seemed taller by at least a hand, and more stately somehow. When he saw Malona he came right over to the rail and whinnied in expectation, "where have you been? I've been waiting for weeks!"

"What did you say?" She asked in surprise.

"I've been waiting for weeks!" The horse repeated. "So are you going to saddle me or not?"

"Saddle you?" Malona asked, confused. "Where are we going?"

"Why home of course! It's time we went home to the palace!" The horse responded as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "We've been mucking around on this _ranch_ long enough."

Malona backed off from the rail, her hands trembling just a little. The ranch life was all she had ever known. It was all she had ever wanted to know. She had only visited the palace where her mother had been raised maybe twice in all of her life, and had wanted to leave as quickly as she could both times. She had never told anyone, but the palace had actually scared her. There were so many rules, and expectations. She didn't know how her mother had survived her youth there doing what she did. They were good people, but she never felt like they were her people, his majesty notwithstanding. Her people wore denim, rode horses, walked in goat manure without caring, and fed their cuccos every morning.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" The horse asked. "Are we going home or not?"

"But, I am home." Malona protested. "This is where I belong."

"You can't be serious," the horse retorted. "Here, in the muck? You were born to greater things than this, my lady. Now please, saddle me so we can get back to who we both really are."

"This is about mom, not me." She told herself. "I'm here to help mom." And the palace is where mom came from, she reasoned.

"Okay, Big Man. I'll get your saddle." Malona told the horse.

"Big Man?" The horse snorted. "My name is Starfire, my lady, or have you forgotten that as well?"

"Starfire." That was the name of her mother's old horse, the one that she had when Malona was little. Had she forgotten him? How often had her mother taken her for rides in the saddle with her on him! This wasn't Big Man, this was her mother's first horse, the one who had come with her from the palace, and he wanted her to go there with him in this strange, silent reflection of the world.

She took a deep breath to steady her shaking hands. "It's about mom." She repeated. "Mom needs this." She then looked back towards the horse and nodded, then went to the side shelf where the saddles and blankets were kept. The only tack there was his.

"Okay Starfire," she told him as she grabbed his tack from the stand nearby, "Let's go to the palace."

"Malona!" Daphnes had shouted into the strange, seemingly endless desert night. "Gaepora!" He tried again, cupping his hands to his mouth to magnify the sound as he stumbled across the dry sands. He recognized the wasted landscape around him in spite of the strange starless sky, and too quiet silence, and knew he was in real trouble. He didn't know how he had gotten there, or where his brother and sister were, but he had spent enough time in the Lanayru desert to know his position almost exactly, and it wasn't good.

"Fi?!" He called out again, hoping the A.I. which governed the Master Sword might somehow hear him and respond, but there was nothing. He was alone, and if he was right about his position, he was deep in bokoblin territory.

All around him was cast a silvery light as though there were a bright, full moon out, but the sky overhead was so empty it was surreal. There weren't the somewhat friendly stars that had kept him guided in the right direction at times during his combat tours in the gods forsaken place. There was just nothing.

He was also weaponless when he found himself standing on that strange pad with the golden triangle in the middle of it. It had been surrounded by large glowing flower petals. It disappeared the minute he set foot off of it, but not much else changed about his situation.

Was this the Sacred Realm? He had asked himself that same question over and over again since he arrived here. If it was, then the Triforce had to be here somewhere. Was this a test of some kind? That was another good question. He had imagined the Sacred Realm to be many things in his imagination over the course of his life. The wasteland had not been on his list.

He felt like he had been walking forever, though he had no idea how long it had actually been. At least it didn't feel like the cold desert night he had grown accustomed to in his service here, but neither was it too warm either. From where he started, he began walking in the direction that he thought the gates to the rest of Lanayru province lie, though for as long as he felt he had been walking, he thought he should have at least seen some hint of the security fence by that point in time, but all he saw ahead of him was still miles and miles of desert.

"I'm getting nowhere." Daphnes finally admitted to himself as he stopped to rest on a more or less flat rock that jutted out from the desert sands. "I'm getting nowhere. There's no one else here. And the truth is that I don't know where I'm going or what I'm supposed to be doing here to begin with." He told himself.

Then his mind went back to his basic soldier's training. "Three priorities," he told himself. "Priority one, follow orders and accomplish your mission. Priority two, the survival of your team, leave no one behind. Priority three, assuming priority one and priority two are no longer in question, survive yourself." He then asked himself, "What is my mission?" The answer wasn't short in coming. "My mission was find the Triforce. I was supposed to do that with Gaepora and Malona but they're not here right now, and I don't know where they are. This brings me back to priority one. Find the Triforce and save mom."

As he looked around him into the desert, he then asked himself, "How to do that? It doesn't seem like whatever brought me here wants me to leave just yet. The question is, where would the Triforce be?"

As he looked around the surreal desert, he noticed a black shape in the distance off to his left which he hadn't seen before. "That's new." He said to no one in particular. It was tall and spiraled, like a finger or a black spike thrust up into the sky. He got an uneasy feeling in his stomach from the sight of it. It reminded him of something... Some place he had seen in a book somewhere, though he couldn't remember what book.

"Come little hero! If you want to rescue the Princess, come see me in my fortress!" A voice boomed into the silence over the desert. It was a deep, menacing voice that Daphnes felt all the way down to his bones. He didn't know the owner of the voice, and something within him told him he didn't want to either.

Beside him appeared a sword embedded in the rock halfway up the blade. It didn't look much different from a standard issue R.H.M.G. sword with the Royal Crest emblazoned on the crossguard. Next to it lay a guardsman's enchanted shield.

"Oh, and say hello to a few of my servants. They're dying to make your acquaintance." Boomed the deep voice again. "You'd better hurry, the Princess can only entertain me for so long." The voice took on a lecherous tone and ended in a worse laugh which raised Daphnes' blood pressure.

In the desert before him, between himself and the black tower, skeletal forms began to emerge from the desert sands. Numerous skeletons, some of the armored, all of them armed with swords, axes, shields and other archaic weaponry. Daphnes recognized them as the stuff of Hylian children's nightmares, including his own, once upon a time: stalfos, undead rotting skeletons of warriors that had fallen on a battlefield. Countless soldiers had died on this desert's battlefields over the millennia, he knew, and it looked like the owner of the voice intended to "introduce" him to every one of them.

"Sir!" Came another voice off to his right, calling out to him. He turned to his right and there was the security fence he had been looking for! With the gun emplacements on stone towers every twenty or thirty feet manned and ready. It was the most beautiful sight he thought he'd ever seen.

"Sir, we'll cover you long enough to make it through the gate!" Called out a guardsman he didn't know who was trying to waive him in the direction of an open security gate. "Get out of harm's way! We'll need to call up at least three more units to deal with them!" The guardsman yelled out again.

"Come little hero!" The voice boomed again from his left. "Your princess won't last much longer I'm afraid, and I'm getting bored." The voice dripped with malice and evil intent.

"Retreat and call for reinforcements, or charge headlong into an army of skeletons." Daphnes weighed his options quickly. He knew what the smart thing to do would be, but if he did that, the Princess was lost. "But saving the Princess is the mission." He told himself, looking at the open security fence. He knew they couldn't keep it open for much longer. Not with this many hostiles. Lake Hylia would be overrun. "Damn. I've got no choice." He told himself. "The mission comes first. Mom comes first."

He took the hilt of the sword lodged in the rock with his left hand and tugged on it. It slid out with a loud noise of metal scraping against stone. He took up the shield with his right and strapped it to his arm. "It's just me. I'm all she's got. So be it." He said quietly. Then he turned to his right and called out to the officer at the gate, "Close the gate! Protect Lake Hylia! Don't open it for anyone until I return with the Princess! Gun emplacements shoot whatever's not me! Light these nightmares up!"

"Sir?!" The confused guardsman called out.

"That's an order guardsman!" Daphnes yelled back.

Behind him he could hear the sliding of the security gate as it closed shut with a thud. Then the desert night lit up with tracer fire as several of the stalfos immediately ahead of him started exploding into fragments of bone. He may have to charge in there alone, but that didn't mean he couldn't use all the resources at his disposal.

"Alright mom, just hang on. I'm coming." Daphnes said into the night air, and then, sword raised high and shield up, he charged the line of stalfos that were still standing.

The streets of Castleton were dark except for the strange silvery light as Gaepora walked through them. No lights came from the business buildings or apartment towers, and for as far as he could see, his was the only presence there. The unnatural, peaceful silence in the metropolis was almost deafening.

Near as he could tell, he appeared downtown near the "new" city center. The construction on it had begun long before he had been born, but less than a century ago. That made it still new in comparison to the millennia in which the ancient Castle Town which Castleton had grown up around had stood. He had been standing in the center of the roundabout at Hyrule Street and Kingdom Boulevard where the new parliament building stood across the roundabout from the Grand Royal Theater north to south. East to west was the Stock Exchange and the main headquarters of the Royal Hyrule Military Guard. Normally this intersection never slept, and the lights of the city never went dark. This was as silent as the grave to him. It was unnerving.

He had stopped trying to find Malona and Daphnes some time before, though he wasn't certain exactly how long it had been. Time seemed to have stopped around him, and only he was in motion as he wandered through the streets. He was working on the assumptions that this wasn't Castleton at all, but the Sacred Realm, and that he was in some kind of test. This was the only thing which made sense. It also stood to reason that if he was being tested, so also were his brother and sister. And if all that were true, it meant that the Triforce was also here. Somewhere. The question was where.

He had started off the pad moving north towards old Castle Town, about five miles from the new city center. Gaepora knew the streets of the city well. He walked them often with his own family on his days off, watching street performers and eating fried cucco from vendors along the street. His own apartment where he lived with his family was in a high rise building two blocks from where he appeared, close to where he worked at R.H.M.G. headquarters. He had considered stopping there first, but logic told him that wasn't where he needed to go to finish his mission. Logic told him he needed to go to a specific place in Old Castle Town, the only place in this city which had ever been the sacred triangle's resting place according to his parents' stories; the Temple of Light.

To be honest, even though the silent, Sacred Realm city felt creepy, it wasn't much of a trial to him. Castleton had been home to him for more than two decades now, from the time he graduated high school in Ordonville and was accepted to Castleton's Royal Military College on his majesty's recommendation. Being the presumed son of the Hero and the Princess with a written recommendation from his majesty didn't leave the deans much option in terms of his acceptance, not that he didn't in any way work hard for his placement there. He spent long nights studying and mastering every subject thrown at him, and learned his father's lessons on swordplay well, almost as well as his brother.

The hustle and bustle of the metropolis had become more his home than the rural farming community his parents reveled in had ever been. He loved his parents, but he had never really felt like the goat ranch or the rural life was where he belonged. In school he had always excelled at magic and the sciences. As new technologies had been developed, he had clung to them and adopted them when the rest of his family were still trying to figure out what they were for. When he arrived in the capital city, as he inhaled the city air and heard the "charming" sounds of the street musicians, peddlers, vehicles, and just all of the different kinds of people, it was the first time he ever felt like he belonged. It was a feeling he couldn't ever understand, and for a while the guilt he carried about it tore at him, though he had come to terms with it long ago. He couldn't ever fully understand why his mother and father had turned down the life they could have had, even if they hadn't stayed at the palace. How herding goats and stepping in horsecrap was preferable to civilization and the power to change things for good was beyond him. But that was the decision his parents had made for their lives, and he had learned to respect that. His life didn't have to be theirs, nor theirs his.

He came upon the ancient drawbridge for Old Castletown. It wasn't technically ancient, as it had been repaired and the wood in it replaced many, many times over the centuries. But, for all intents and purposes it was still the original drawbridge over the ancient moat, built for foot traffic, horses, and horse carts and not motorized vehicles. And normally, it was still manned by castle guardsmen in traditional, medieval Royal Uniforms for the tourists, although the assault rifles they stood fast with were very modern, and always loaded. It was also normally down to allow access into Castle Town, even at night.

The sight which greeted him here was not normal. The bridge was raised. Across the moat, he could see the great solid wood gates were closed, and the solid steel portcullis was down and in the locked position. The bridge crossing over the moat was at least thirty feet, and even if he could jump it, there was nothing for him to land on or grab on to. Not even his dad could have done it in his legendary past without some kind of help.

"Okay, no problem." Gaepora said to himself, reasoning it out. "This is a test. It's a puzzle. I just have to find the right way in." He said as he began to study the problem more closely.

There were only three gates through the ancient fortress wall around the moat into the old capital: west, south and east. The palace itself lay to the north of Old Castle Town, its own gate opening up onto the old marketplace center of town. They all had identical drawbridges, though the other two gates would take him the better part of another day on foot to investigate. Because Hyrule's capital had originally been partially built into space that had been naturally enclosed by rock walls and hillsides, one couldn't just make a direct circuit around the old fortress walls. You had to go way out of your way around the natural walls as well. Breaching them for a more accessible, convenient route had occasionally been discussed, but never carried out.

"Chances are the other two bridges are going to be up as well." He reasoned. "Otherwise, it would be an annoyance, not a test." Then he continued to think. "But maybe that is the test. Only this bridge is up, and one, possibly both of the others are down." His mind continued to work on the problem.

Then came the smell of smoke. "What?" He asked as it crossed his nostrils. That was when he saw the first fire erupt from the other side of the castle town walls. Then came the screaming of children and large caliber, automated gunfire.

Gaepora's heart started to pound at the sound as he tried to repeat to himself, "it's only a test. It's not real."

Then he heard the screams of his wife and their two daughters, "GAEPORA! … DADDY! HELP US!" It was coming from inside the old town as the fires began to spread across the castle wall.

His family's screams echoing in his head, his mind went blank, and before he knew what he was doing or could think about the consequences he had flung himself across the bridge chasm and was just barely gripping on to the spaces in between the boards of the bridge yelling "NOOO! I'M COMING GILLI!"


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Deep in the Temple of Time, in the library, the Sage of Time quietly carried on after the three would be intruders entered the Sacred Realm. Under the circumstances, it seemed the best way to carry out the king's instructions to help the brothers, who already knew everything they needed to, was to stay out of their way. So, he did just that. The addition of the Lady's daughter (who else could she be?) surprised him, but not apparently them, so, he took no action. Sometimes, more often then not he had observed, no action was the best action to take.

He had been at an ancient wooden reading desk, several ancient, leather bound volumes stacked around it, all of them written on the process of "ascension," the transformation from mortal to divine. It was beginning to frustrate him no end as he tried to learn anything he could which might be of use to his majesty and the Lady, but there was little written on the subject that he was not already aware of, even in the bound volumes written by the hand of Din herself ten thousand years ago. It seems the process mystified even those who had undergone it. And if that was so, how could he possibly understand it enough to be of help to the Lady?

"Interesting reading?" Came a voice from behind him. It was not a voice he had heard often in his own life, but he remembered it all the same from the few times he had as he looked up from his book, and twisted slowly around. What he saw was the form of a younger man in a green tunic and long cap. The younger man glowed with a golden light and power as he stood there.

"Unfortunately no, my Lord." He told the Hero with some regret. "I can't seem to find anything to help my Lady with her circumstances." It didn't surprise him to see the Hero restored. His majesty had already informed the Sage of the Hero's return to his proper place. "How may I serve you?" He asked him.

"Of all the Sages in Hyrule, your mind alone is protected from being instantly open to all the ascended because of this Temple's unique protections. Were you aware of this?" The Hero asked him.

"To be truthful, I was not. It is rare any of the gods come to visit me in my solitude. Even my own." He said, a mild rebuke lying under the surface of the words. "This is the first I have heard of it."

"I have need of that to continue for the time being." The Hero continued. "All is not right with the Others, and I need to understand why. Farore and Nayru are intentionally blocking the Lady Hylia's ability to ascend for no reason. I have looked into the mind and heart of her mortal form, and she has met the criteria they laid down. The restrictions should have been lifted, and they have not."

"That is disturbing news, my Lord." The Sage responded gravely. "And a heavy accusation for one so recently returned to the gods."

"One I do not make lightly, if that is your implication, Sage." The Hero told him sharply. "This is my wife I am speaking of." His irritation could be felt intensely rolling off of him like waves.

Mr. Impaz was silent at his rebuke. It would accomplish nothing to provoke the Hero further, he reasoned.

"I need to know what has happened to Din." The Hero continued after a short silence.

"I was not aware that anything had happened to the goddess." Mr. Impaz replied in confusion. "What could happen to her?" He asked with real concern.

"From what I've been able to gather, the only goddesses anyone has dealt with for decades have been Nayru and Farore." The Hero explained further. "Doesn't that seem strange to you?" He asked. "Only two of the three have been seen by mortals."

"In all honesty, it seems strange to me when even one is seen by a mortal. And the only mortals who have seen those two are those who are directly related to them. Din is not, as I understand it. Why would she reveal herself to your children?" Mr. Impaz reasoned.

"Sound reasoning, except not even her own Sage has had any contact with her since not long after we were reborn. Doesn't that seem strange to you, Sage?" The Hero countered. "Hylia has had no contact with you because she has been mortal for almost sixty three years and lies dying in a hospital bed in Castleton. The Three never act unless all are in agreement, and have rarely if ever appeared without all three present. So, I ask again; where is Din?"

It was a disturbing observation the Hero had made, and Mr. Impaz turned inwards to see through the recent past to determine if there was an answer to the god's question to be found among the currents of time. It could have been seconds, or it could have been hours, but when he returned to himself, the Hero was still standing there waiting for an answer.

"I do not know, my Lord." He responded in fear, his face white as ash. "You are right. She has not been present anywhere in Hyrule for the last sixty years, and I can see no point in history which would explain it. It is as though she has just vanished."

"And there is one less powerful ascended being to govern the stability of our world." The Hero concluded. "What effect would that have?"

"You would know the answer to that better than I, my Lord." Mr. Impaz protested.

"Indulge me." He said flatly.

The Sage of Time tried to compose himself in the face of an irritated and demanding heroic divinity and recall everything he knew about the unique relationship between the gods and their world. "It would begin to throw our world out of balance, my Lord. Fundamentally, wisdom and courage are pointless without the power to apply them. Wisdom can turn to overthinking and thus to foolishness without the power to put it into action. Courage becomes merely wishful thinking but does nothing. Water and green life must be countered with fire so as not to destroy everything in flood or overgrowth. The balance must be maintained or our world will become unraveled."

"And no one has seen her for over sixty years." The Hero said pensively. He then changed the subject, "I presume my children have entered the Sacred Realm?" He asked.

"Yes, my Lord. I was instructed by his majesty to assist them in the best way I could. As there was little more that I could tell them that your sons were not already familiar with about their pursuit, it seemed best that I choose to remain out of their way and permit their unrestricted access to this temple in order to carry out his majesty's instruction. So I did." The sage told him.

"And so they received no warning about the trials of the Silent Realms?" The Hero's irritation grew to anger with the Sage as his eyes blazed red. "You allowed them entry without warning them of the tests?"

"I assumed they already knew!" The Sage protested innocently. "And the spirit of the Master Sword was in communication with your daughter once she pulled the sword from the pedestal I am certain. They will come to no harm whether or not they succeed. You of all people know this to be true!"

"That is debatable. Harm comes in many forms, Sage." The Hero argued. "And it would be best if they did succeed."

"If I may ask a question, my Lord?" The Sage questioned.

"Yes, go ahead." The Hero responded.

"If there is a 'block' where my Lady is concerned, why not just remove it yourself?" He asked sincerely. There was much he didn't understand about any of this. Things were so much simpler when he was a mere secretary in his princess's office in the palace and he didn't have to contend with such things as were so far beyond his understanding.

The Hero studied Mr. Impaz for a minute before he answered. The man was nothing but sincere in his question, and it was a reasonable observation. "Because I can't yet take the chance of the Others collectively forcing her back to mortality permanently until I understand exactly what's happening and why. If my children succeed with the Triforce, then the Others have no choice but to accept her ascension."

"I see." The Sage responded. He then sighed as he took his eyeglasses off and used a corner of his robes to clean them, gathering his thoughts to respond. It was a movement which reminded the Hero more of the office secretary the man had been formerly than the Sage he was now. When he put them back on his face, he finally responded, "I ask for your forgiveness, my Lord. I may have the abilities of my predecessors, but not their experience and wisdom in understand the 'politics' among the divine. I saw much of it among the ministers of parliament and government officials when I still worked in the Lady's office as her secretary. I came to understand that it was part of the 'game' of governance. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that there are such things among the gods as well, but it does. My first loyalty is to my Lady. It was when she was my princess, and it still is now that she is my goddess. My first concern with all of this must be her will, and barring that what is best for her. It was my mistake to lose sight of that in favor of what the 'Others', as you have called them, might desire or wish, and it was especially my mistake that anyone could somehow love my Lady or have her interests more at heart than you." He sighed again sadly. "I'm afraid I allowed my 'Castleton' prejudice against your mortal form to cloud my judgment about you and your children where my Lady was concerned. When you first married her, all I saw was the rural boy from Ordon marrying a princess too far above his station."

The Hero gazed at the Sage intently. He had already known the man's prejudice against him, even before he had ascended. The man hadn't hidden it very well. But he also knew that it too had been born of a sincere, avuncular concern for the former princess, and so he had let it go. He finally nodded to the Sage in acceptance of his apology.

"I have only had contact with one other like yourself, and that has been my predecessor, the Sage that was known as Impa. And that was within the last several weeks concerning yourself and my Lady. Her concern for the both of you was very real." The Sage told him further. "Otherwise, to my knowledge, no other deity has entered the Temple of Time since I was made its guardian, and though, unlike his majesty's tenure, I am able to leave the Temple, I rarely do. I would know if the Door of Time had been opened and used, even by a goddess. I can say with reasonable certainty that if Din came here, she left the same way she came without making me aware of her presence."

The Hero seemed to consider this and then he asked, "You said Impa was concerned about the two of us?"

"Yes, my Lord. It was my impression that she too sincerely wanted the two of you to succeed in returning to your proper realm, and wanted herself to assist in any way she could, but she was also bound to follow the will of the Three." Mr. Impaz told him. "She may be an ally if you are willing to trust her."

"As may be one other who is here, if I can contact him again safely." The Hero nodded again thoughtfully.

"You speak of Daniel Jackson." The Sage said matter of factly. "You know for certain that he is here then?"

"I do. He assisted me by removing the block which had been placed on me." The Hero told him truthfully. "He is another whose ascension I must protect by not revealing myself to the Three just yet."

"I understand, my Lord. I of course will keep his presence here to myself as much as I am able. Of course, if another goddess enters this Temple, I cannot keep them from knowing what I know, but I will endeavor to remain shielded in the Temple until this trouble is over." Mr. Impaz assured him. "I have supplies in my residence to keep me for another month if necessary."

"Not a month, Sage. Hylia doesn't have a month." The Hero reminded him. "We have two and a half weeks at best."

"I obey you as I would her, my Lord. What is your command?" The Sage responded.

Why the doorway between worlds continued to appear on a moving train in this world, the short, black hooded figure would never know. It was the only world where the doorway wasn't fixed in what should have been a stationary location. He supposed, however, that this was better than him appearing on the tracks in front of the moving train.

If anyone saw him appear, no one on the passenger car appeared to notice. That was a good thing. It meant his cloaking spell was still in place as he took in his surroundings to get his bearings. The car was divided up into separate compartments with windows set into the doors which opened up onto the main passage running the length of the rail car. The car seemed a bit newer than the last one he had appeared in, with more electronics and digital displays visible throughout. It also seemed a bit quieter too.

"Must be a newer design." He said to himself in his high voice as he looked around. Noticing that one of the compartments was empty of passengers, he quietly made his way over to the sliding door and slipped inside to sit down on the royal blue cushioned bench. Through the glass window, the open grasslands of the region the locals called 'Hyrule Field' sped by rapidly. This train seemed to be moving much faster than the last one too. He wondered if it was heading to the same destination as well, or if it was a different train altogether.

"Arrival at Castleton Grand Central Station in five minutes." A pleasant sounding female voice announced from speakers in the compartment. "Thank you for choosing Royal Hyrule High Speed Rail Lines transnational service from Nabooru City in the Republic of Hyrule to Castleton by way of Mido Seaport. Please enjoy your time in the United Kingdom of Hyrule."

"Well, that answers that question." He said to the empty compartment.

He had been told many years before by Yen Sid, his old keyblade mentor and master, that time moved at different rates inconsistently between the worlds to which the keyblades could travel. So, while it had been a matter of months for him since last he had laid eyes on the Hyrule countryside, he wasn't certain as to how much time had passed here, or what he would find. The last time he had been here, it seemed like little if any time had passed by the time he returned to his own kingdom, and he had been in Hyrule for weeks. Looking at the sleek, computerized interior of the rail car, and the speed at which it was traveling, he guessed it had been many years.

The truth was, he wasn't entirely certain why he had returned to Hyrule except for the mysterious, red haired woman that had appeared at the Mysterious Tower to speak with Yen Sid shortly after his own return. He wouldn't have even known of her arrival except he had visited there himself shortly after his return to his own Magic Kingdom to inquire further from the aged sorcerer about the things he had learned about the nature of the true Kingdom Hearts and the original Chi-Blade which had been long thought destroyed. It had been something of a shock to him to find that they were in fact both intact in the unique world he now found himself in, though they had very nearly been lost except for the "divine" intervention of a very special princess of heart.

The last place he had seen her and the hero he had come to know and respect was in the capital city, Castleton. It was the only place he knew to start looking for more answers to the questions which had been raised by the appearance of the attractive, passionate "lady in red." He had come to think of her with that name, although she had been introduced to him with the more mundane name of "Din." Of her, his former mentor only said that she was "a friend from his youth" from before the keyblade war. Mickey Mouse had no idea that Yen Sid was that old, much less how he was that old.

He had not been privy to their full conversation in Yen Sid's lab, as he had only emerged into the Mysterious Tower from the doorway between worlds when they seemed to be finished for the day. He had only just walked in to find the gray bearded, stern sorcerer in his bright blue robes and hat which pulsed with images of a star filled galaxy in a serious conversation with the lady in red. The tone of their voices told him that it was a discussion between equals, colleague to colleague. That alone had blown Mickey's mind. He hadn't ever imagined there to be anyone who could address Yen Sid as an equal.

He had only caught enough of what was said to know that she had been there since he himself had returned, and someone's heart had been darkened, perhaps even stolen, by Xehanort's use of the true Chi-blade. Mickey knew that only one person in Hyrule had been stabbed through the heart with the Master Sword by Xehanort, and he had died. He knew this because he had been there when it happened, and the victim, a great man he hadn't had the privilege to know, didn't survive. Mickey had been there for the Hylian King's funeral.

Din couldn't seem to understand how a keyblade could be used in such a fashion, something about she "never designed it to do that."

"We have been studying the keyblades and all they are capable of ever since Demise caused the great war." Had been Yen Sid's response. "In the time since the schism between the worlds, the keyblade masters learned to do things with them through the power of belief that you never dreamed were possible in all of your research." He had then let out a sad sigh, "Not all of it, however, was put to the use of good."

"I saw what the evil man did to his heart right before he died. The splinter of dark energy which infected it." The fiery woman had told him. "How was that possible?"

Din had the build and grace of a dancer, and wore billowing white pants, of the kind he had seen his friend Aladdin from Agrabah wear, tied at a thin, athletic waist with a bright red sash. Her feet were bare, as was her upper body except for a purplish brassier tied by strings which only just covered and held her shapely breasts in place. Mickey felt forced to avert his eyes, blushing the first time he had come upon her because of it. Her bright red and orange hair seemed to flicker like flames as she moved her body expressively when she spoke. She pulsed with a power and energy that Mickey had encountered only rarely, and never from a mortal anyone would consider "normal." She was a woman Mickey wouldn't soon forget.

"If these worlds we chose to study have taught us anything, it was the relationship between the heart and reality. The keyblades were meant to open the doors between worlds, or to seal them." Yen Sid replied. "Refresh my memory, didn't your research lead to the discovery that the 'heart' of a sentient being directly influenced the reality that being experienced?"

"You know it was." She replied, hands on her hips.

"Well, we took that research further and discovered that the heart of a being, the emotions, mind and imagination, don't just influence the world around them. There's an inverse, reciprocal relationship between the two so that the one actually creates the other. It's similar to the relationship between a sub atomic particle and a singularity. The relationship is more pronounced in some worlds and realities than it is in others, like Hyrule or the Magic Kingdom for example, but it exists nonetheless." Yen Sid had told her.

"And because a heart and the world it creates follow the same principles," Din followed his reasoning, "a keyblade can be used to open or seal a heart as well thus allowing energy to pass into it like a singularity allows energy to pass through it. Damn." She exclaimed. "I should have foreseen that in my calculations long ago."

"There is much we should have foreseen, but didn't, my dear. The time for regrets is long, long passed" The sorcerer responded. "We can only deal with what is, not what once was." There was a sad smile on the aged man's face as he gently placed his hand over hers on the surface of his desk.

"How unfortunate that is true." She agreed sincerely, smiling back. "But fate chose different paths and responsibilities for us. Yours is watching over the worlds from this tower. Mine and my sisters' is the guardianship of the Kingdom's Heart. This was the price for our interference in things that were beyond our understanding at the time." She then added in reflection. "The price for a mortal trying gain the power and understanding of a god is to be condemned to the responsibility of one for eternity, envying the quiet, normal life of mortals. The irony of it."

"So it is, my dear. So it is." Yen Sid agreed. "Speaking of which, you must return to Hyrule soon. The Others won't be able to maintain the Kingdom's Heart without you for very long."

"It was good to see you one more time, my love. I wish it could have been for longer." She said, sincere regret in her voice.

"As do I, my dear. As do I." Yen Sid told her. Then, it looked like a terrible, dark thought had struck his mind. "What happened to this man? The one in whom the splinter of darkness entered?" He asked her.

"As I said. He died. It was tragic. He was a good man." She replied.

"And his shade?" Yen Sid asked. "Was it normal?"

"I don't know. Once the soul leaves the body it is out of our sight. We must rely on the guardian of Shadow's mind to keep us informed. Why?" She asked. "What more could possibly happen to him in the Shadow Realm?"

Yen Sid became pensive. "It may be nothing of concern." He finally said. "I will consult with another who is more familiar with the shades than I am. You should return now. I will contact you if what I learn is of importance."

But Mickey could tell from his old mentor's expression that it wasn't as easily dismissed as that. The darkness which entered a heart didn't just go away, he knew. It had to be fought against or else it would grow and consume the heart. At least that's how it worked with the living. But with the dead? And a shade from a race that was naturally adept at magic? The fur stood up on the back of Mickey's head just thinking about the kind of "heartless" that might be produced as he watched the landscape change from countryside to urban sprawl and then metropolitan center as the train slowed down gradually to come to a stop in the Castleton station.

Even dead, Xehanort was still causing pain and terror to innocent people, Mickey decided as he exited the compartment for the exit doors. That was why the keyblade wielding mouse had come back to Hyrule. His mission was unknowingly left unfinished.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

The journey on the white gelding's back felt like it took forever, and yet somehow it was over in a matter of seconds as the horse brought Malona across the grassy expanse of Hyrule field and into the thriving metropolis. The starless sky overhead never changed, and the animal beneath her never tired in his gallop as he road north through the unending night.

None of the sights she saw were new to her. She doubted they ever would be, knowing they were drawn from her own mind, as Starfire raced into the city and down the broad avenues. There were no street cars or vehicles of any kind on the roads, but the streets were filled with people of every race in the kingdom that only just got out of the horse's way. For his part, the animal had no intention of slowing down for the pedestrians either.

"Slow down, Starfire!" Malona yelled at him to no effect. "You're going to trample someone!"

"It is they who must yield to us, your highness!" The horse responded without slowing. "I must return you to your rightful place!"

"Where are we going?!" She called out to him, clutching the reins as she bent low to move her body with the horse's movements as she had done since she was very little. But the horse didn't respond, and his path was still taking them directly north at a full gallop for the miles from the outskirts of the city to deep in towards the city's center.

As they got closer in towards Old Castle Town the number of people in the streets increased exponentially and Starfire was forced to slow down as he passed them. "How rude!" He snorted as he was reduced to a walk in order to cross the bridge into the old town.

"What are all these people doing out on the streets?" She asked him. "The capital's always crowded, but it looks like the whole kingdom is on the streets trying to get into the Old Town."

"They're waiting to see who will sit on the throne." The horse responded apologetically. "I'm sorry, your highness, but you've been gone a very long time. That's why I had to bring you back now before a usurper claimed your rightful place."

"They can have it." She said flippantly. "I'm not one of those girls who ever dreamed of living in the palace and wearing frilly gowns."

Starfire stopped so suddenly that Malona jerked forward in the saddle hard. "Who are you?!" He demanded. "The Princess I served and loved would never have allowed anything so selfish to escape her lips!"

"Selfish?" Malona asked in confusion as she straightened herself up. "How is my not wanting a life of luxury in a palace surrounded by servants and fawning courtiers selfish?"

"You have forgotten yourself, haven't you?" The horse asked sadly. "That was not the life I remember you having."

"What do you mean?" Malona asked.

Starfire began slowly walking forward again. "Look at the faces of the people around you, your highness. Tell me what you see." He said, nodding towards the sea of people they were passing through.

Malona studied their faces as he asked. She saw Hylians, Ordonians, Gorons, Zoras... But then she saw people also she knew rarely if ever left their own places, Kokiri, Skull Kids, Moblins, and other speaking, "sentient" peoples and races. The looks on their faces were fearful, expecting, wanting to hope, but fearful of hoping for too much.

"They look frightened." She said. "What are they frightened of?"

"The future, your highness." The horse responded. "Without the Princess of Wisdom to lead them and reassure them, the throne is open to whoever is strong enough or clever enough to take it, good or bad. Their future is uncertain and full of terrors."

They passed a group of Goron children, their faces of living stone downcast as she and Starfire passed them. One of them, a girl she thought, looked up at her, her eyes pleading hopefully.

"Why do those Goron children look so sad?" She asked.

"Don't you remember?" The horse replied.

"No. Remind me." She returned insistently, an edge creeping into her voice.

"Before you, ah... retired, you were the driving force behind the racial equality legislation that guaranteed their rights to equal education and opportunities. When you left, they lost their greatest champion. No one else in the government was as passionate for the rights of all the kingdom's children as you were." He replied solemnly. "And no one after you either."

"I didn't know that." She replied, humbled. "All the rules, and the glamor always scared me. It all seemed so superficial and false and made for someone else who enjoyed being in the spotlight and getting their way. I never wanted to be a spoiled princess."

"Spoiled?!" The horse snorted in disbelief. "How could a true princess even be spoiled? With great power comes great responsibility, your highness. You knew that once upon a time. The life of a true princess is one of supreme sacrifice, never being able to truly have a personal life to yourself. The first duty of a princess is to her people and her kingdom, never to herself or her own comfort. You told me that on many occasions during our rides. His majesty may have held the title of monarch, but no one doubted who truly governed the kingdom, and to whom the people looked to lead them."

She rode on in silence, considering his words carefully in her heart. "The people really wanted their princess to lead them, didn't they? They loved her very much when she was forced to abandon them."

"They didn't just love you. They worshiped you, your highness." Starfire gently corrected her. "You were more than their ruler, you were their goddess made flesh, and they put their whole faith in you."

"So when the princess left, they lost their faith?" She asked.

"Now you understand your importance to them." He said. "The people lost more than their beloved ruler. They lost their goddess. And when one loses faith in their god, they either struggle to have faith in anything else, or they are so desperate to believe in something they will believe in anything or anyone."

Malona felt something change within her as her mount's words penetrated into her heart. She had been selfish. Her mother may have had her own reasons, but Malona had just been selfish staying as far away from her rightful heritage and responsibilities as possible. As they passed, more of the people seemed to take notice of her. Their eyes seeing her pass as though for the first time. Each and every one looked at her expectantly, and for the first time, she saw eyes that were filling with hope as she passed them.

"Please, your highness, come back to us." One of them whispered desperately as she passed, and a little tremor of fear went through her. "My Lady..." Another whispered, calling out to her. She could hear whispers beginning to pass through the crowd. "The Princess... The Princess is returning." "Zelda... Princess Zelda comes..." "The goddess made flesh rides a white horse..."

Her heart began to race as more and more eyes turned to her expectantly, tears of hope and fear flooding them and reverent, pious whispers of her mother's mortal name running among them, and then came the whispers of her mother's immortal name, "The Lady Hylia..." "The Lady comes again."

"Oh goddesses, they think I'm her!" She nearly screamed inwardly. She wanted to shout back, "No! I'm not my mother! I'm not your princess!" But she kept her silence as she looked into their eyes.

They moved on through the crowd until they came to the central market square of Old Castle Town. She knew this place from the few times she had been here throughout her life. But something was wrong. Something was different.

In the middle of the old town center there should have been a fountain with a statue of some historical figures, though she never wanted to know who they were or what they had done. But now it had been replaced with something else which she knew was far, far from where it should have been in the real world. In the middle of the old town market there stood the raised pedestal, embedded in which was the Master Sword. All eyes that hadn't seen her approach yet, were gazing fearfully at the blue and silver sword embedded in the stone of the pedestal.

But it wasn't the sword that kept her attention focused on the center square. It was the black cloaked figure that was furiously attempting to draw it from the pedestal with gauntletts of black steel and leather, a cowl of darkness covering his head.

"Who is that?" She demanded from Starfire.

"It is as I feared." Starfire told her urgently. "A dark one has come to usurp the throne."

"Who is this dark one?" She asked as the horse came up and stopped several yards from the pedestal.

"There have been many, and yet somehow it is always the same, a man whose only love is the power to control people. If he steals the throne again, then all these people's lives are forfeit to his will." Starfire told her. "My Lady, look around you. Would you really leave these people to the whims of an evil man?"

She looked around her, and suddenly the square was filled with children of all races mingled in with their parents, terror in their eyes at the nightmare man made real.

"Damn. This is the test." She realized. "Do I walk away and be Malona from Ordon, or do I take my mother's place?" She then asked, "But it's not real, it's all in my head. What kind of a test is only in your head? What difference does it make?"

"We are what we believe we are, your highness." Starfire told her. "Your belief creates the reality. And this," he motioned to the dark robed figure with his head, "will come to pass. There is no way to stop the darkness from trying again. It can only be kept at bay by a champion of the light. So it has always been in our world, so it will always be."

"What do you mean?" She asked, her eyes on the frustrated figure.

"As long as the darkness finds a foothold within Hyrule, it will always seek to extinguish the light from her people." The horse responded.

"I can't let that happen." She said as though it were a sudden realization. "These are 'my' people."

"My Lady." Starfire agreed, bowing his head.

Swinging her leg over she dismounted from the white horse, unarmed though she was. Her eyes couldn't avoid meeting the eyes of the people who looked to her desperately for help as they then looked fearfully at the man whose black muscular hands were wrapped around the hilt of an unyielding sword.

Her booted feet hit the ground on the left side of the horse, and then the realization of what she was about to do hit her hard. Her hands began to tremble and she steadied herself by gripping the sides of the saddle.

"What are you doing, Malona?" She asked herself. "This isn't you. You're not a princess, or a hero. You're just a farmer from Ordonville who came to this damn city because her mother was sick. You never wanted any of this." Her hands gripped the sides of Starfire's saddle so hard that her knuckles were white. "You have two sons, one of them about to be married, the other almost through high school. You have a good life, a blessed life. Are you really going to give that up for... for what?"

"Please, my Lady." A child, a little girl, cried out in desperation from somewhere across the market square. "Please don't abandon us again."

Tears stung her eyes as the choice weighed heavy on her, and she wiped them with her sleeve. She then asked herself the same question she always did when faced with an important decision.

"What would Mom and Dad do?" She whispered to herself, but she already knew the answer to it.

"You're the Hero's daughter, Malona." She told herself as she came to terms with it. "You know what Mom and Dad would do. You've grown up being told the answer all your life. This is who you are."

She dried her face one more time, and then, standing up straight, she steeled herself and turned to face the pedestal where the dark one was still tugging violently at the Sword.

"I am my father's daughter." She said aloud as she walked with purpose towards the man. "Courage has sired me."

Her stride became more determined as the sound of her booted footfalls began to echo across the market place. She stood straight and tall, each stride becoming more dignified and refined.

"I am my mother's daughter." She spoke again, a resolution coming into her voice as she stared at the would be usurper. "I am Wisdom's child."

Suddenly the man froze in his jerking movements as though he had been struck. His fingers flexed one by one around the hilt of the sword, which began to glow orange under his black gloves.

"I am a descendant of the Great Queen." She announced loudly to the whole market square, surprising herself especially. "The Power is mine by right of birth." There was no question to the intent of her proclamation. The challenge had been issued and couldn't be rescinded. There was no turning back.

The effect on the hooded man was immediate as he cried out in pain and fell back from the pedestal and down on one knee, his gloved hands were smoking from where they had been burned, as he howled in rage.

"Who dares challenge me?!" He bellowed, the waves of his rage emanating across the people as they shrank back in terror. The faceless hood then looked up with glowing red eyes towards the woman striding confidently towards the pedestal.

"You!" He yelled in disgust. "Who are you to challenge me for the right to rule?"

From deep within her, a confidence, a personality emerged that she had never known before, and it was as if someone else had joined with her, and they became one as she responded, "I am Zelda, rightful Princess of Hyrule. And you will not harm my people again, dark one." The strength and steel in her voice were absolute as it carried from person to person and ear to ear.

There came an intense, tingling, almost burning sensation from the back of her left hand. When she raised it to look, there on her slender, yet strong hands that had only known the hard, good life of a farmer and rancher was marked the outline of three golden triangles in blazing light set together to form a single triangle. The triangle at the bottom right corner glowed golden as it filled in and became solid, and she could feel the wisdom and knowledge of the ages infuse her soul. "I am Zelda." She repeated to herself again, the understanding flooding her mind and heart. It wasn't just a name. It wasn't just her mother's name, or her great-great grandmother's name. It was a title and a responsibility to protect the people of Hyrule from the darkness that had always and would always threaten their very existence. "It's who I've always been; and who I was always meant to be."

"No!" The dark one raged. "No! You will not interfere with my plans again!" He got to his feet and, raising his hands, balls of dark energy formed in them. "You will taste my wrath!" He yelled, and drew his hands back to unleash the darkness.

But just as he was about to throw them, they fell from his hands as a shaft of pure light struck him in the chest, and he cried out again in rage and pain.

Malona then knocked another arrow, the shaft and head created from pure light, the bow and string golden and gleaming. They had appeared in her hands with a mere thought. They felt comfortable and right in her hands, and she hadn't missed her mark with an arrow in all of her life. She let the next arrow fly and it struck the dark one again, driving him back and away from the pedestal.

"No! You left! You abandoned your people!" He screamed in rage and pain. "You're just a milkmaid daughter of a goat herder! How can you possibly protect this people from me?!" He raged at her.

Another shaft of light struck deep into the cowl of his black robes and he howled in pain.

Malona strode with confidence up to the pedestal and, the bow and arrows disappearing with a thought, placed her left hand on the sapphire blue hilt of the Master Sword. The golden triangle flared brilliantly with light on her hand as her fingers closed around the sword.

"Recognition accepted. Mistress Zelda accepted." Fi's voice announced for all to hear.

"I am the Princess of Hyrule." She told him, her the tone of her voice ringed with steel and power. "I will always protect my people from you, no matter what the cost." The truth and the deep knowledge of that truth filled her very soul as she pulled upwards and the Master Sword slid from its housing in the ancient stone and held it skyward.

The blade filled with energy and power as she pointed it to the sky. "You will never rule this people, dark one. I will always be here to protect them."

She turned and pointed the tip of the blade at the black hooded figure. "Always." She said one last time, and then she willed the energy in the blade to release and it slammed into him, throwing him off of his feet backwards and the dark figure disintegrated into nothingness.

And then the triangle on her hand flared bright and strong with golden light and it surrounded her until all was awash in its bright, sacred aura.

Malona found herself standing once more in the great hall of the Temple of Time. She blinked several times to clear her vision and get her bearings as to where she was. She thought she was seeing double as two younger versions of her father stood trembling in front of her, haunted, serious looks in their eyes as they too blinked and began to look around them. One wore the forest green tunic and traditional long cap of the Hero over chain mail, and brown leather gauntlets. The other wore the same but in blood red shades.

The one in green looked intently at her in confusion, and asked, "Mom?"

Malona's face scrunched up in confusion, "What?" She asked in return, "It's me, Malona."

The one in red pointed at her body, and then she looked down at herself, and was stunned. She was wearing a pink and white dress with silver trim that she had only seen once in a picture from long, long ago. It was emblazoned with the royal winged triforce crest across the chest and apron. Long, white silk gloves covered her arms. She touched her head, and upon it rested a diadem. She could feel the Triforce symbol etched into its crest.

"Holy goddesses." She exclaimed. "I've become her."

"And so you have." Came the voice of an older man walking towards the three. "The Triforce has made its choice, and revealed who each of you was truly meant to be."

All three turned and looked towards the owner of the voice. He was a shorter, plump, balding man with wire-rim eyeglasses who wore the red robes of a Sage emblazoned with the sigil of the Eye of Truth.

Malona looked at her white gloved left hand, and pulled the glove off. There, on the back of her hand was the golden outline of the Triforce, the right bottom triangle a solid, glowing golden color. The two Links in front of her followed suit, pulling the gauntlets of their left hands off to reveal the bare skin beneath. They too carried the mark. The mark of the one in green glowed solid in the left hand corner. The mark of the one in red, the top.

"I've become Dad." Came the voice of her oldest brother, Daphnes from the green clad version of her father as he looked at the glowing mark that represented the Triforce of Courage.

The other man, whom she now recognized as Gaepora remained silent, the expression on his face sad, and serious. When he did finally speak, he whispered, "With great power, comes great responsibility."

"Indeed it does." The Sage agreed solemnly.

"But what does this mean? Each of us carries a piece of the Triforce?" Daphnes asked, remembering their purpose. "How do we use it to help our mother now if it's split apart?"

"The Triforce will grant the wish of a mortal when all three pieces are brought together in balance. It has marked each of you as a bearer. Therefore, each of you must be in full agreement as to what you wish." The Sage told them.

Daphnes nodded, and then held out his left hand. "I know what I came to wish for. This is for Mom."

Malona took her brother's hand in her own, "For Mom." She said.

Gaepora took his own hand and placed it palm down on top of his brother and sister's. The Triforce of Power glowed bright and powerful as he did so. "We wish for the Lady Hylia to ascend and return to her place among the gods." He said with solemnity and sincerity. His brother and sister each nodded in agreement.

Talon sat by the side of Zelda's hospital bed, keeping his vigil faithfully as she attempted once again to meditate, eyes closed, and find her way back. He had been watching over her intently since the Sage of Shadow had departed. She had seemed sadder but more determined after his former colleague had made her report. The king knew that the former princess had loved her father very much, and she was using that love, channeling it towards her purpose. If the block had not been there, he knew, the power of it would have brought her to her goal.

She opened her eyes again, blinking them several times as her mind returned to the reality of the room around her. Then she rubbed them with her hands.

"Has there been any word from Malona or my boys?" She asked him.

"Not yet, my Lady." He told her. "You know that such things as they are attempting take time and patience."

"I do." She said. "It's the mother in me. I worry."

Talon smiled as he took her hand. "I'm sure they are fine, my Lady."

She smiled, and then said sincerely, "You have always been so good and loyal to me, Talon. Thank you for staying by my side during this. I understand why my husband and children aren't here, but it would have been much harder if you hadn't stayed."

"My Lady, I have always and ever been at your service." He responded, nodding his head.

"I wish..." She began to say, and then stopped and a strange look came over her face.

"My Lady, what's wrong?" Talon became alarmed.

"I feel..." She began to try to describe it, but fell short as her whole body began to glow with light and power. The years etched into her beautiful features by natural aging melted away to reveal the young woman he had known as his aunt, his Princess, and his goddess all of his unnaturally long life.

"My Lady!" He cried for joy, tears welling in his eyes.

She smiled gracefully at him, touching his cheek gently with the palm of her glowing, light filled hand. "My faithful Sage." She said to him. "Thank you. I need to go now."

"Of course, my Lady." He replied. "I understand. What shall I tell Malona and the boys?"

"They already know." She responded. And then the hospital gown she had been wearing collapsed in on itself as her physical form vanished from it and became a ball of light and energy that rose up from the bed, and then ascended through the ceiling skywards.

"Farewell, Aunt Zelda." He whispered, eyes up towards the ceiling.

Then there was a stabbing pain through his chest, and Talon cried out as the blood began flowing freely from the would around the tip of the blade that had penetrated through his red shirt. The shock and surprise overtook him and he couldn't focus his thoughts as he realized his brain only had minutes left before it was completely lost.

There was no voice, and no sound of footsteps registered in his ears to give any clue as to whose hand had been on the hilt of the blade as he struggled to calm his mind and prepared to follow his goddess.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

The giant television monitor display along the side of the glass and metal high rise business building in downtown Castleton had been running with the breaking news story since shortly after Mickey's train arrived at Castleton station. The sidewalk and entertainment square beneath the giant monitor had filled over the past hours with people who had stopped whatever they had been doing or wherever they had been going at the alarming headlines, and hadn't moved since. Many were in tears, others just appeared to be in shock. Mickey himself stood invisible among them, cloaked by his black robe and spells, transfixed by the continuous updates trying to decide what his best course of action might be next.

"BREAKING NEWS! ROYAL FAMILY FOUND DEAD OVERNIGHT! KING TALON DISAPPEARED WITHOUT EXPLANATION! GOVERNMENT IN UNCERTAINTY! LIVE UPDATES AS THEY HAPPEN!"

The ticker at the top of the screen had flashed the disturbing message in red and white every ten seconds since the crown prince and his entire family had been found dead. It was written in a script similar to that in some of Yen Sid's most ancient spell books which Mickey had been given the privilege to study from once upon a time.

"Prime Minister Agahnison declared a state of emergency ten minutes ago in light of the overnight killings of Crown Prince John and his entire family and the unexplained disappearance of his majesty, King Talon, who had been out of the public eye over the last week, though unconfirmed rumors were that he had been seen frequenting the royal medical apartment in Castleton Main Hospital although not as a patient. The Crown Prince and his family were found slain in their beds by palace attendants this morning. They were all killed by an apparent sword impalement some time overnight. No suspects have been named or are in custody at the moment. A kingdom wide search is underway for his majesty."

The news anchor was trying her best to maintain a calm and professional demeanor as she read from the teleprompter off screen, but Mickey could tell she was badly shaken and emotional over what she was reading. The scene cut from the anchor desk to a video of people representing all of Hyrule's races laying wreaths, flowers, and lighting candles in front of the palace gates in tribute. It wasn't hard to see how much the people loved their royal family.

"I didn't expect to see you here." A man appeared next to the four foot, black cloaked mouse. He wore a simple tan pair of pants, and a matching tunic.

"Likewise, Daniel. I would have thought you would have gone home by now. It looks like a lot's happened in a month." Mickey responded in his high pitched voice, turning his head towards him.

"A month?" Daniel asked. "It's been a little longer than that since we both were here before." He told him.

"I guessed it had been. But it's only been a month for me." The mouse responded.

"Yeah, it had been almost three hundred years for me when Link came to find me back on Earth." Daniel informed him. "For them," he gestured to the people around them, "It's been about forty five years."

"Wow. Traveling across realms is funny that way, isn't it?" The mouse responded with a small laugh, seeming to miss the implications of the time frame his friend just gave him.

"I suppose that's one way to put it." Daniel smiled. "So, what brings you back?" He asked.

"Someone from my old mentor's past came from here to visit him in the Mysterious Tower." He said, turning his attention back to the monitor. "She said dark energy had entered King Daphnes heart when Xehanort stabbed him just before he died."

Daniel's face betrayed surprise, "Who was this old friend of Yen Sid's?" He asked the mouse.

"She was a really pretty, dark skinned Hylian gal Yen Sid called 'Din'." Mickey responded, continuing to watch the news as it unfolded. "Come to think of it, I would have thought she'd have beaten me here, seeing as she left before I did. I wonder where she went."

"Me too." Daniel said, his face taking on a pensive, thoughtful expression. "You know, I think you and I have a lot of catching up to do." He said, putting a hand on the mouse's shoulder.

"Yeah, but what about that?" Mickey said, pointing to the news.

"Like I said, we have a lot of catching up to do." Daniel told him again.

Deep in the Temple of Time, Talon appeared to the Sage of Time alone shortly after the news broadcasts had started on the television system which had been installed in the Sage's residence decades ago.

After their ordeal in the Silent Realm, and the successful use of the Triforce, the Sage had invited the three to rest in his own personal chambers, which were impeccably tidy and well kept. It had been a long and trying time for all of them, and he knew it had been some time since the two brothers especially had gotten any sleep. Malona had been given use of his own bed, and the two brothers collapsed on a large cushioned chair and the small couch in his residence respectively.

The Sage had been watching the breaking news broadcast on the twenty four hour news channel with the sound muted and the lighting dimmed so as not to disturb the three 'heroes' (as he was coming to think of them), and the closed captioning feature turned on so he could still read what was being said by the news reporters. His expression turned from mild interest at the happenings in the world to concern, and then alarm as the news of the deaths and the disappearance flooded the airwaves. He reached out to the former Sage immediately through the mental link all Sages maintained, and received nothing in response, not even an awareness of the king's presence in this world.

"Goddesses have mercy!" Mr. Impaz had exclaimed in hushed tones in shock and fear as the news continued to get worse minute by minute.

The temple door gateway activated. The activation of the gateway was something of which he was always aware. "Now what?" He asked into the air as he turned to head down towards the great entry hall. Just as he reached the door to leave his apartments, the king's voice came to him. "Mr. Impaz."

The Sage turned around to find his majesty, or at least a much younger version of his majesty, standing in front of him. He looked so much like the Hero with whom he had recently conversed that at first that's who he thought he was seeing. But there was no mistaking the long, braided flame colored hair inherited from the great man's even greater mother. The former secretary gave a little squeal of fright at the sight.

"Peace, be still." He told the frightened little man.

"Y-Your majesty." The Sage responded. "W-What happened? The news said you vanished, and your family...?"

"Yes, I vanished." The king responded. "My assassin didn't give me the choice."

"Your assassin?" The Sage repeated, and then he understood and gasped, "Oh no. You've been killed? You're... you're...?"

"Ascended." The king finished his statement. "I joined our Lady shortly after she returned to her rightful place."

"And your queen? Your children? Their families? What of them, my Lord?" The Sage asked, shifting to the address befitting his majesty's new status.

The king's face fell, and his head hung in sorrow. The pain and emotion in his voice were evident as he said, "They are lost to me forever. All of them."

"Oh," the Sage felt like he had been struck in the stomach, "Oh, my Lord I am so sorry. My heart grieves most deeply. Oh, I am so sorry." He went to an empty chair next to the small table and sat down. "Do you know who did it? I mean, I assume you do, you must, now." He finally asked, not knowing exactly what else to say.

"I don't." Talon responded, regaining control of his emotions as he folded his hands behind him and walked slowly, pensively around in a short circle. "And I don't know why I don't. I don't even know who my assassin was. I had access to all of the mortal minds in Hyrule once I ascended, but none of them appear to have been responsible."

"How is that possible?" The Sage asked.

"I have a theory, but it is one that needs proving." Talon said, but did not elaborate further. "But there is now a more pressing problem for us, and one I can't be involved in solving directly, at least not any more. The rules which constrain us forbid it. This is why I am here speaking to you under the protection of the Temple's unique displacement in time. I cannot just do nothing, but all I can do is give you what I now know to be true in such a way that the Others do not know I have done that much. You and my brothers and sister, the chosen of the Triforce, must be the ones to set things right."

"I am at your disposal, my Lord." The Sage responded, understanding the gravity of the responsibility he was being charged with.

"There is now no direct heir to the throne in Castleton. This will will cause chaos by itself." Talon began.

"Indeed." Mr. Impaz agreed. "That in itself is concern enough. The Prime Minister has already declared a state of emergency to try and keep the panic under control."

Talon shook his head, his expression becoming both sad and angry, "Prime Minister Agahnison has no intention of following the laws of succession in finding and proclaiming a rightful heir." He told him. "He intends to drag the search for myself out as long as he can, pretending to lead in my name, and after that no longer suits him, find any means he can in order to keep himself in power." The king told him. "Even possibly proposing a republican form of elected government, where he can influence a puppet head of state for as long as he wishes. I could see these plans evolving and growing in his mind even as I crossed the threshold into the Temple."

Mr. Impaz considered this new information carefully. "And he had nothing to do with the murders of yourself and your family?"

"No." He said, looking up and into the Sage's eyes. "I saw nothing in his mind which suggested he had anything to do with them. He was just as shocked as everyone else. No, the plans to seize power began as the tiniest thought in the back of his mind, and then evolved quickly as the events of the morning dragged on. The poor fool has deluded himself into believing it would be the best course for the country's stability if he held on to the reins of power to 'guide it through this crisis'. I knew he wasn't a man of faith in the gods or the Legend of Zelda when I appointed him, but I never could have foreseen his agnosticism being so quickly twisted into this."

"But a descendant of the goddess must sit on the throne, my Lord. There must always be a Zelda or one of her descendants. Surely he must know the consequences for this world if the line is broken." Mr. Impaz protested in disbelief.

"That is the problem, my friend. He does know. But he does not believe it." Talon responded. "That is why he must not be allowed to remain in power."

"But, who can displace him now? Without a sitting monarch, he is acting head of state. As such, the next in line to the throne would have to be either be recognized by him, or be recognized by the goddesses in front of all the people in spite of him."

Talon turned his gazed towards the sleeping form of his half sister, still clothed in the traditional dress of the crown princess which the Triforce had bestowed upon her. "Indeed, my friend. She most certainly would need be. You will need to assist her by any means necessary."

"What?" Mr. Impaz looked with confusion at Talon and then followed his gaze towards the sleeping woman in the royal dress. "Oh... Oh my."


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Gaepora found himself back in Old Castle Town. All he could hear among the fires that blazed across the row houses and businesses were the screams of his wife and children. His hands were bleeding and full of splinters from the wooden planks of the bridge he had thrown himself at to get to them. His face and arms were burned from the heat of the flames as they raced from building to building in Old Castle Town. Glass was cracking and shattering, people were running out of their homes and businesses. Everyone was screaming and crying, but it was the voices of his family which filled his ears. Having landed wrong off the bridge to the paved street below, he rolled his ankle hard and fell, hitting the pavement harder. He was trying to avoid hitting any of the people who were on the other side of the bridge. They were beating the raised bridge with their fists, pounding on it as if somehow that would release the mechanism to lower it. But the bridge remained stationary.

So many panicking people surrounded him, flooding the streets, trying to get out of harm's way after he painfully picked himself up to get into the town when everyone was trying to get out. It was confusing and disorienting, and there were so many people... So many people that it was his duty to get to safety, he reminded himself.

The tearful screams of his daughters filled his ears again from somewhere in the town and he turned towards the gates to head into the inferno when someone else next to him, an old woman, yelled, "Someone help us! Lower the bridge! We need to get out! The chains! Someone break the chains!" She pointed up towards the top of the bridge.

Gaepora followed her fingers to see the two massive, thick steel chains that held the bridge firmly in place. He let his gaze linger for a minute as he tried to figure out where the release mechanism was. Then his girls screamed again and he started limping as quickly as he could towards the gate and into the town where the fires raged uncontrolled.

Smoke was everywhere, blinding and choking him as he stumbled through looking for his family. "Where could they be?!" He shouted to himself more than once as he made for the center of town. The place they tended to frequent in the old town was the market square where vendors and street performers frequented on the weekends. His girls loved to watch and listen to the musicians, and look through the vendors' colorful wares. There was a nice outdoor tea house that they would all stop at when they went. It had become a family tradition for them when they visited the old town.

Then he heard the very familiar sound of rapid gunfire, and more screaming coming from up ahead through the smoke. It was coming from the market square. He sped up as quickly as he could with his damaged ankle.

"Magic." The thought came to him as he hobbled up the street. Almost as quickly as it came though his mind tried to bury it again. "Magic isn't the answer." He told himself, squinting from the heat and the smoke. "And besides, even if it is, I don't really have the power to fix this." He said looking around at the vision of hell that had erected itself where the charming old city center had once been.

That's not strictly true, is it? The thought came to his mind unbidden and unwanted. Then, a face, an incident came to his mind, one he had promised he wouldn't let happen again. One that had happened because of his magic. A person, a friend, had been hurt because he wanted to do too much too fast. He promised he wouldn't ever let it happen again. That meant using his head and finding other solutions to problems.

But what if there is no other solution? He couldn't get away from the thought.

A building exploded in flames next to him and he was thrown to the side, hitting the pavement again.

Gaepora's eyes flew open with a start and he found himself laying semi-comfortably in a reclining chair in the Sage's apartments across from his older brother who was still sleeping on the couch. He looked down at himself and found himself still wearing the archaic brown leather gauntlets and red tunic with which he had returned to the Temple's great hall.

"Ugh. I still look ridiculous." He said, closing his eyes again, bringing his finger up to rub his forehead where a dull pain had started to develop. What was it from? Stress? Lack of sleep? Both? "I need to get back to the barracks and get a fresh uniform for the trip home." He told himself. Looking over at his sleeping brother he said, "So do you, Daphnes."

Daphnes, unhearing and uncaring, didn't respond.

"Well, I'm glad you can sleep, brother." Gaepora said as he sat up and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. "I don't think I'll ever have decent dreams again." He remarked as he looked around.

As he turned his head, he spied the Sage, Mr. Impaz, sitting alone at his little two person dining table, a haunted, pensive expression on the older, balding man's face. His elbows rested on the table, hands steepled in front of him.

Gaepora rose from his chair and went over to the troubled Sage. "I thought I was the one who had the nightmare, your grace."

The Sage looked up with a start. "What? Oh, I see you're awake. Are you sure you got enough rest, General? Time is one of the few luxuries with which I can afford to be generous in this Temple. Please, after what you've been through you can take as much time as you need to rest and recover."

"No thanks." Gaepora returned, sitting down at the table opposite him, not wishing to elaborate further. "I've slept enough."

"Your father had nightmares too." The Sage observed. "In all of his many past lives."

"Yeah, I know." The Hylian general replied with a sigh. "I just never thought I'd have to find out why first hand. So what about you? You look like you've seen a ghost with bad news on top of it."

The Sage's eyes met Gaepora's, and the general instantly understood that, somehow, he had hit nearer the mark than he intended.

"Dare I ask?" Gaepora asked him, massaging his forehead with the heel of his palm in a futile attempt to dispel the headache which wasn't going away. "I thought we had won."

"As did I." The Sage responded. "Except, if the study of history tells us anything, especially the history of your family, general; nothing is ever that simple."

"Do tell." He responded with a hint of sarcasm, holding up the back of his left hand for the Sage to see. "I'm not much for tattoos. I certainly didn't ask for this one, or the price to gain it."

"Power." The Sage said, studying the arrangement of golden triangles. "You hold the Triforce of Power within you."

"I listened to my father's stories all of my life. Every time he talked about this, he said when the Triforce split, the individual virtues went to the one who believed in that virtue the most." Gaepora told him.

"So it is." The Sage confirmed.

"But I've spent my life trying to avoid the use of power where it can be helped, trying to think my way to find solutions to problems without using force. My mother was almost always able to think her way through problems which confronted her. I don't understand why the Triforce of Power would choose me." Gaepora explained.

"Perhaps the Triforce saw something in you that you either can't see, or refuse to see. Your mother was, and remains, perfectly capable of great displays of power when the situation called for it. The Triforce of Power is the piece of the Triforce which represents the goddess Din. Ironically, she is the only one of the three to whom you are not related. As you know, she is also our goddess of fire, and the seasons. There must be a great fire burning within you for the Triforce to have made its decision the way it did." The Sage adopted a serious expression once again. "And from what I have just learned, the time may be fast approaching when all of Hyrule may need the power of that fire in its hour of need."

"Fire." Gaepora repeated, a haunted expression creeping into his own eyes as memories from his Silent Realm test came to his mind. "Fire destroys and consumes, your grace. It burns and causes pain."

"If left unchecked by the grace of Wisdom and the leadership of Courage, yes it can. But when it is tempered and brought into balance fire can be life, light, warmth, and the power of creation and renewal as well. It can be the driving force for great good. Ultimately fire and power are tools, nothing more. How they are used is up to the heart and skill of the one who wields them." The Sage said.

Gaepora considered this. "Fire and power can also consume the one who wields them." He replied.

"Only if that person lacks the Wisdom and Courage to know when and how to wield them." The Sage countered. "Consider my words, General." He said gently.

Gaepora nodded. "I will." He agreed. "Thank you, your grace." After a short pause, he then asked lightly, "So, whose ghost visited you while I was sleeping?"

The Guard Captain in the barracks office at the Sacred Grove entry fence was keeping one eye on the incoming news reports from the television broadcasts, and the other on the computer monitor in the control house displaying incoming electronic messages from R.H.M.G. headquarters. The latter kept the isolated Guard station updated with classified information the news services would conceivably commit felonious acts to obtain. Like the fact his majesty's bloodstained clothing had been found lying on the floor of the hospital suite where her former royal highness Zelda had been admitted. Or that a shortsword was found with the king's clothing stained with the king's blood. None of that information had been made public and was marked "Classified: R.H.M.G. Senior Officers and Prime Minister's eyes only". The Guard Captain of the Sacred Grove installation was considered the former, and thus had the access codes for such messages, though few people in the government hierarchy even knew his position existed.

Most of the messages, however, were low level, unclassified standing orders being sent out by the command staff at Guard headquarters in Castleton to all the commanding officers of the various Military Guard command posts around the kingdom in the interests of facilitating a search for their missing king, and the people responsible for murdering his family. Only those senior members of the R.H.M.G., and apparently Prime Minister Agahnison, would know the search for his majesty was likely going to be futile, and the general public was being strung along for the time being.

That didn't sit well with Guard Captain Daltus. No. He didn't like that at all. Like all Royal Guardsmen, he had sworn an oath to his majesty and the royal family to defend the royal family and the United Kingdom of Hyrule from all enemies, foreign and domestic. He answered to the rightful, reigning monarch, not the Prime Minister, who legally had no authority in the military's chain of command. That his name was listed in a military communique in such a way was presumptuous at best, treasonous at worst in his humble opinion. And with such a matter as this... No. He didn't like it at all.

Captain Daltus had studied Hyrule's governing constitution very well. It was written in such a way that no royal minister or member of parliament shall exercise any authority over the United Kingdom's military forces unless acting with the reigning monarch's explicit instructions. This provision was always interpreted up til now as meaning the Minister of Defense. All authority over the military constitutionally resided in the sovereign monarch of Hyrule, or the man whom the monarch might designate as Supreme Commander to oversee the military in his place.

There were several repeating, unclassified messages that had been sent out to inform Generals Daphnes and Gaepora Faroson that they had been recalled back from their indefinite family leave, and were to report immediately to Guard Headquarters in Castleton. Among the classified messages, for senior guard officers' eyes only (no prime minister mentioned), was a message from command that emergency provisions had been enacted, and the senior of the two Faroson brothers had been placed in supreme command of all of Hyrule's armed forces until his majesty or a suitable heir could be found and returned to the throne. The message was explicit that his majesty had left written, confirmed orders to this effect to be opened and enacted in this kind of an emergency.

Under their previous orders from his majesty, however, the Guard Captain in command of the highly sensitive installation could not inform headquarters of the whereabouts of his superiors until they themselves gave the word. Neither could he contact them by telephone to the Sage's residence because he was also under royal orders to not interfere with their mission until they returned to the barracks themselves. And so the insistent open broadcast messages went unanswered for several hours as he watched it be repeated over and over again as he sipped strong, hot tea from his mug.

Those men not on guard post at the moment also had their eyes glued to the twenty four hour news channel either in the control house or in the barracks lounge, though they weren't privy to the more sensitive electronic messages from headquarters. Captain Daltus wondered if that was really for the best this time as he heard murmers, rumors and speculation being passed back and forth as to where his majesty might have been. The only men close by with which he could share the information regarding his majesty were down at the Temple.

"Post fifteen to Guard Control." The call came over the radio. Post fifteen was the checkpoint just outside of the old temple ruins, not far from the "doorway" of the temple itself. "Post fifteen to Guard Control please respond." The call came again a few seconds later, the voice insistent and urgent, when Daltus didn't tap the microphone right away.

The Guard Captain tapped the wireless earpiece he wore to respond, "Guard Control, Captain Daltus, go ahead Post Fifteen."

"Captain Daltus, three persons just emerged from the doorway. Two of them... well, I'm not certain but they both look like the Hero from the legends, sir. And one of them..." The guardsman paused.

"Yes, guardsman go ahead. What about the third?" Daltus asked, trying not to be phased by this new information. "This is the Temple of Time we're talking about." He told himself off the microphone, though to be honest, this wasn't exactly normal, even for this Guard barracks.

The man continued, "Well, I'll be damned if it isn't the former Princess Zelda from all the pictures of her I've ever seen. From what I can tell, the princess is carrying the Master Sword."

"Have the three persons reached you yet?" Daltus asked.

"No, sir, they're still a hundred and fifty feet from our position, just outside of the doorway." Came the response.

Daltus thought for a few seconds, then said, "Hold your position, let them come to you. It may be our missing Generals and their sister, a Miss Malona Faroson. She came through under express orders from his majesty last night before his disappearance. When they reach you, have General Daphnes Faroson contact me immediately. I have orders that need to be relayed to him immediately from headquarters."

"Understood, sir. Post fifteen out." Came the response.

Five minutes later, a call came through the radio again. "General Faroson to Sacred Grove Commanding Officer, please respond."

Captain Daltus tapped his earpiece immediately, "General Faroson, can I have your classified number for I.D. purposes please?" He responded.

"Alpha-alpha-michael-two-bravo-three-one-five-six-tango." Came the voice on the other end. "What's this about, Captain?" The voice on the other end was insistent and confident of his authority over the man. Daltus had no doubt just from his voice of his identity, and entering his access code into the computer, his I.D. was confirmed.

Daltus proceeded, "I apologize, General, as of oh-three hundred hours this morning, the kingdom has been in a state of emergency. Headquarters has broadcasted messages across the system to all the barracks trying to locate yourself and the younger General Faroson. His majesty, King Talon..."

"Has ascended to the realm of the gods after an assassin attempted to murder him." The General finished for him. "The rest of the immediate royal family have all been assassinated by persons unknown. We are aware of the situation, Captain. The Sage of Time informed us an hour ago."

Daltus' expression changed to surprise. "Then you appear to know more about the situation than anyone else does at the moment, sir. Orders from headquarters state that, as of oh-five hundred hours this morning, emergency provisions in the absence of a reigning monarch have been enacted and you have been named Supreme Commander of the Royal Hyrule Military Guard. Yourself and General Faroson have been requested to return to Guard Headquarters in Castleton immediately, Supreme Commander."

There was silence on the radio for what seemed like an eternity.

"Supreme Commander Faroson, sir. Did you copy my last?"

Another pause, and then, "Yes, I copied, Captain. As of ten thirty eight this morning, I, General Daphnes Faroson of the Royal Hyrule Military Guard formally accept and enter into the service of Supreme Commander by order of his majesty, King Talon, and in his name and the name of the goddess Hylia."

"So entered into record, Supreme Commander Faroson, at ten thirty eight this morning." Daltus returned over the radio. "All guard barracks and senior staff have now been informed of your acceptance of the position of Supreme Commander."

The General then asked, "On whose authority was the request made for my and my brother's return?"

Daltus responded, "Prime Minister Agahnison, sir."

"Is he aware of the orders for my 'promotion,' Captain?" Daphnes asked.

"To my understanding, the orders for your promotion came from the General Staff at Guard Headquarters based on written orders, signed and sealed by his majesty to be enacted only upon such a situation as has now arisen, and the message was secured and routed to senior officer staff only." Daltus then checked the message recipients on the computer system. "It doesn't look like even Defense Minister Mutoh has been informed of it yet. My educated guess is that the Prime Minister is still in the dark at the moment, Supreme Commander."

"Has the Prime Minister made contact with the next in line to the throne? My understanding is that it would be his majesty's cousin, Duke Gustaf Johnson; nephew of my mother's father. His primary residence is an estate near Lake Hylia." Daphnes asked.

"No, sir. There's been no mention of it either in the public news broadcasts or in the secured electronic messages. My understanding is that the Prime Minister intends to conduct a thorough search for his majesty before attempting to locate the next in line." Daltus responded. He didn't mention the rest of what the senior officers had been told. A thought then occurred to him, "Correct me if I'm wrong, sir, but, shouldn't your mother be next in line?"

There was another long pause. "That's no longer a possibility, Captain." Came his answer. "My mother... is no longer with us."

"Then wouldn't it pass to yourself, sir?" Daltus pressed, not entirely certain as to why, except the General's own parentage and family history were no secret to anyone.

His superior ignored the question, "Captain, I want a full staff of Royal Family Protection Servicemen posted at the Duke's residence immediately. Move them from my parents' property in Ordon if you have to. They don't need them any longer. Inform the Prime Minister that his request for my return to Castleton will be denied until the rightful heir to the throne has been found and removed to Castleton for installation as monarch. Send orders to Guard Headquarters that I want the General Staff relocated to your position in the Sacred Grove immediately. I want them there by the time we reach the top. That should be three hours from now. The Prime Minister is not to be informed of to where the General Staff is being relocated, am I understood?"

Daltus didn't hesitate as he pulled a pad and paper and began to write down his instructions furiously. "Yes, sir." He responded.

Daphnes continued, "I also want messages sent out to all guard barracks clarifying in no uncertain terms that the Prime Minister has no constitutional authority over the Royal Hyrule Military Guard and they are not to obey any orders given by him. The search for his majesty is to be called off, and the Duke is to be contacted for accession to the throne."

"Understood, Supreme Commander. Do you have any further orders?" The Guard Captain asked.

There was another pause. Then, "I want mine and General Faroson's immediate families located and then relocated from Castleton to my parents' property south of Ordonville immediately. If you're not familiar with the location, our wives will be. I want guardsmen stationed with them at all times."

Daltus wrote down his superior's instructions to the letter. Then he asked, "What are you expecting to happen, sir?"

Daphnes didn't hesitate, "I'm expecting all shadow's about to break loose, Captain. Carry out my orders. Supreme Commander Faroson, out."


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

In his office in the parliament building in Castleton's city center, Prime Minister Agahnison read the message delivered to him from the new "Supreme Commander" with rage building from the beginning to the end when he took the paper it was written on and tore it up in front of the messenger.

"HOW DARE HE!" He exploded at the office clerk, his narrow face and tips of his ears red from anger. "Just who does this backwoods nobody General think he is? Does he know who I am?!"

The poor secretary didn't respond. Instead his eyes kept flitting to the open door to the office longingly, his feet wanting to shuffle in that direction were forced by him to remain in their place as he waited for the Prime Minister's further instructions. Unfortunately, to get those instruction he had to endure the next few minutes of his presence.

"I want Guard Command Headquarters General Staff in my office as soon as possible! We need to rein this delusional renegade General in as quickly as possible. Now is not the time to have a loose cannon out there causing trouble!" He shouted, looking at the secretary. "Well, go!"

The secretary nearly ran from the office, thankful for the excuse for a quick release from being the target of the man's wrath.

Agahnison turned to look out his office window at the view of the city center below. He had lived in this city all of his life. He knew its pulse, the beat of its heart, and he knew it was the beating heart of Hylian civilization. That beating heart had been slow to change and to grow over the five and a half decades of his own life, but it had, and with it so had the rest of Hyrule, and for the better except in one glaring area.

Almost every monarch from the Great Queen Malon right down to the former crown princess Zelda championed democratic reforms. He knew that from the research he did for his thesis for his university degree in political science. There seemed to be an ever advancing arc towards full democratization as Hyrule transformed itself from its medieval past.

But the two hundred and fifty year process of transformation into a modern civilization begun by the ancient Queen Malon wasn't finished yet, not at least for Western Hyrule. Eastern Hyrule had long ago thrown off the superstitious notion that Hyrule had to be ruled by a monarch, and had maintained a successful republican democracy for almost a hundred and fifty years with no ill effects to their people.

But the mistaken notion of rule by divine right stubbornly held on among both the people and the military, if not in the monarchy itself. Someone had to do something to finally do away with it, and there would never been a better chance to completely sever the kingdom from its backwards past then there was right now. He wasn't trying to usurp the monarchy like this upstart General was implying in his message, he told himself, he was only trying to finish the process Hyrule's great men and women of the past had started.

The Prime Minister's secretary reappeared in his office doorway. From the expression on the man's face, Agahnison could tell the news wouldn't be to his liking.

"What now?" He asked him.

"They're gone, your excellency." The secretary delivered the unhappy news.

"Who is gone?" Agahnison asked in confusion.

"The General Staff at command headquarters. I was just informed that they all departed from Castleton an hour ago." The secretary reported.

"Gone?" The Prime Minister asked in disbelief. "Where did they go?" He asked, his voice hardening.

"The Guardsmen left guarding the building wouldn't tell me, and they wouldn't permit me to enter either." The office clerk replied.

"Why?" Agahnison asked, trying in futility to keep his temper under control.

"They said it was classified information, and the Prime Minister's office didn't have the right clearance to receive it." The secretary told him, and then braced himself for the Prime Minister's response.

The Guardsmen dressed in traditional gray dress uniforms stationed across the street at the doors to Guard Headquarters knew instantly when their reply had been delivered. They both broke protocol for a brief second as small smiles flashed over their expressions.

An hour and a half later, deep in the heart of the Faron Woods, a convoy of senior guardsmen and support staff in armored personnel carriers made their way as rapidly as possible down otherwise hidden, gravel service roads which carried signs warning the stray traveler or hiker to turn back or risk being shot on site. They were followed by cargo trucks carrying enough supplies and equipment to replicate all the functions of Guard Command Headquarters command and support center in a remote location. Anyone observing the march of vehicles out of Castleton and down the trans-kingdom highway one might have thought the Guard preparing for a small invasion. By the time they reached the security fence just before one thirty in the afternoon and were permitted past, cramming the relatively small acreage that the Sacred Grove entry post sat on, that observer might have felt himself justified in thinking that way as guardsmen jumped out of the carriers and immediately began unloading, moving and setting up equipment to establish a new central base of operations for the kingdom's military guardians.

Malona, still wearing the pink and silver dress bestowed on her by the Triforce, watched all of it as a bystander, not certain as to what to do or how to help, though she would have gladly hefted and carried any of the equipment if only someone would have given her something to do. Instead she had to tolerate the barely hidden stares of the men and women who were working to establish her brothers' control center. It didn't help that she still carried the Master Sword in its bright blue scabbard strapped to her back.

The three of them had arrived at the top of the gorge about a half of an hour prior to the convoy. Every guardsman they passed stared in disbelief and amazement as they were waved through. No one requested or checked their credentials. Several traced triangles around their shoulders and head in a gesture of... what? Reverence? Fear? She didn't know, and the stares of wonder ate at her. What went through the minds of the guardsmen when they looked at her?

She had wanted to change out of the "costume" as soon as they reached the top, but there had been little time, and no spare uniforms that would fit her frame. At least, those were the reasons given to her by the guard captain who had been in command until her brothers arrived. It didn't help her mood that every time he spoke to her the man ended his sentence in deference with a very sincere, "my lady," and once he began doing it, every guardsman who spoke to her followed suit except for her brothers.

She really wanted to get out of the dress and tiara. Her only consolation appeared to be that her brothers hadn't had a chance to change out of their medieval chain mail and tunics either. But that didn't seem to impede anyone from obeying their orders. And, frustratingly, no one addressed either of them as humiliatingly as "my lady."

"I think your scowl could slay a king dodongo, dear sister." Gaepora said, coming up to stand next to her. "You needn't use the sword at all."

"Be careful dear brother," Malona responded sweetly, "or this princess will sheathe this beautiful, very sharp, very sacred sword up your..."

"Yes, I get the point." Gaepora replied before she could finish. Changing the subject quickly, he said, "I was just told our families were relocated to Ordonville safely. R.F.P.S. has a detail on them at mom and dad's house. The rest of R.F.P. were sent out to Lake Hylia to check on the designated heir."

"They won't find him." She said bluntly, a gut feeling pulling at her. "At least not alive."

Gaepora's expression turned more serious again, "Why do you think that?"

Remembering her Silent Realm test, she gestured to herself and said sarcastically, "Do you really think the Triforce dressed me like this because it thought I was trying to bring back the fashion?" She then added, "And I just have a bad feeling about it I can't explain. I don't know if fate is going to give any of us a choice in this, at least not the choices we want."

"When does fate ever give us the choices we want, Malona?" Gaepora replied, his expression dark and pensive. "We all, you, me, and Daphnes; we all spent most of our lives just trying to live our own lives apart from mom and dad's 'legend.' And then fate showed up and now we're all dressed and ready to fill their shoes whether we wanted to be or not." He then paused, and stopped himself realizing that his voice was beginning to rise. He then brought the subject back to the presumed heir, "We'll know soon enough on the status of Duke Gustaf. He's younger than mom was according to Daphnes, but lives as a retired widower close to the water. Apparently he spends most of his days fishing."

"Is there anything I can do besides stand around?" She asked her brother. "I feel so useless just standing here. You know me, Gaepora. When I'm at home, I'm up before dawn feeding cuccos, letting the goats out of the barn, and mucking out horse stalls, and you know I've never met an old steam truck I can't fix. There's got to be something I can do besides getting in everyone's way."

"You're not R.H.M.G. Your security clearance right now is verbal until we can get one printed. By all rights, you shouldn't even be here. And right now, the Triforce decided you needed to be the living, breathing image of mom as a religious icon. To be honest, Malona, it would be more disruptive to operations right now if you did pitch in." Gaepora explained in all seriousness. "The best thing you can do for right now is to stay back and let the men do what they're trained to do."

"Right. The princess has to stay out of the way and not get dirty." She muttered in disgust, crossing her arms over her chest in a very unprincesslike way.

Gaepora smirked and shook his head. His sister had been a tomboy since she could walk. Nothing had changed in the forty years since. He couldn't remember ever seeing her in a dress before the last twelve hours much less the tiara she now wore. It was startling to him how much she resembled the old video footage of their mother.

"What are you staring at?" She demanded.

He moved his eyes away. "Nothing." He lied. Then he admitted, "It's just that, wearing that, you look so much like mom did when she was younger, or even the drawing of her on the one rupee bill. It's hard to get over."

She took a deep breath and sighed. "I know. I looked at myself in a mirror down in the Sage's apartments, and it didn't look like me at all."

"No, that's the thing. It's still you, but it's mom too. It's like she came back in a way." He tried and fumbled to explain.

She nodded, but said, "Well, for right now it's just a pretty costume, nothing more."

Then Gaepora's eye looked away and his hand went to the wireless earpiece in his ear as he tapped it and said, "General Faroson, go ahead."

The gentled smirk left his face, and his expression became more serious. "Damn." He swore. "Understood. Keep me apprised. Faroson out." He said into the microphone. The haunted look returned to his eyes as he looked at his sister again.

"We just got word back from the Guardsmen sent to detail the Duke at his residence." He told her.

"He's dead." It was a statement, not a question from her.

Gaepora nodded. "R.F.P.S. found his body five minutes ago and reported. Someone stabbed him through the heart and left his body on the side of the lake near his house."

"So, who is next in line for the throne, then?" She asked with resignation.

He looked her in the eyes and said, "In terms of blood relations?"

"You know what I'm asking, Gaepora." She demanded.

"And you already know the answer, Malona. It's literally stamped into your DNA." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before he continued. "Put simply, Mom's abdication was without legal precedent or basis. Technically, she was always the rightful heir, she just refused to take the job. His majesty always considered himself a caretaker in her place for that reason. I don't know what Prince John thought about it, and it doesn't matter any more. Daphnes is the oldest, so legally it would pass to him by order of birth. However, he's been named as Supreme Commander and that presents a conflict of interest which disqualifies him if not legally than politically. The next person after that would be me. But, the truth is that I don't want it. I have my own reasons." When she began to protest, he cut her off, "Let's just say the test showed me it would be very bad for both myself and the kingdom if I was given that much power and leave it at that. You are the one who drew the Master Sword. The Triforce of Wisdom chose you. You are the one marked as the next 'Zelda,' Malona. Of the three of us, it has to be you... my lady."

"It is with heavy and disturbed heart, that I have more ill news to share." The Prime Minister said into the microphone. His expression showed the appropriate amount of genuine grief to match his tone of voice as he addressed the clustered reporters in the news conference room inside the parliament building.

"One hour ago, the Royal Hyrule Military Guard prematurely attempted to contact the presumed next in line to the throne, Duke Gustaf Johnson, nephew to his majesty's predecessor, King Daphnes Johnson in order to fulfill their duty in maintaining a smooth succession of the monarchy. I regret to inform our nation that the Duke was found dead at his home, also apparently murdered. Because the Duke had no children of his own, being a bachelor all of his life, the other senior ministers of parliament and myself have come to the determination that there are no further legitimate heirs to the royal throne. For that reason, and while the search for his majesty's whereabouts is ongoing, I have signed into law granting Parliament, and myself as the leader of parliament, emergency powers over the R.H.M.G., and the oversight of all sacred temples, Sages, clergy, and sacred spaces effective immediately."

Agahnison stopped speaking and stepped back to field the myriad of questions from eager reporters he was certain would follow. This was his battlefield, and he knew his tactics well. Let the upstart General try and seize power. Agahnison would take it to parliament and tell the people what they needed and wanted to hear. That their government was still in control with or without a monarch.

But as he looked at the reporters faces there was stunned, dead silence in the room as all eyes looked at him in shock. He had never seen them like this. Looks of accusation and 'betrayal' filled their expressions.

Finally, one man, an older man who had covered parliament for many years stood up and said, "Your excellency, you can't do that."

Agahnison thought he had heard wrong. "Excuse me? Did you have a question?" He asked politely.

"That's in violation of the United Kingdom's Great Charter." The man said again as the Prime Minister began to steel himself for a fight of words, but he let the man continue to speak as long as all the cameras were rolling. He would be ready for his response. "It says very clearly that the oversight of the military and all religious institutions and clergy will always belong to the reigning monarch or a duly authorized representative of the royal family. Parliament has no authority to give itself the power to change that."

"The throne is empty at the moment. Would you rather let the military run amok unchecked?" Agahnison countered. "These are extraordinary circumstances..." He began to continue.

Then another reporter, a woman stood up and said, "What about the Princess Zelda? She was the rightful heir to begin with. Where is she?"

Agahnison's calm exterior began to come under strain as he responded, "The princess abdicated her position as rightful heir almost fifty years ago. Parliament has determined that in so doing she forfeited her claim for herself and all of her descendents."

"Where is she?" The woman asked again. "And where are her children?" She asked. "Aren't the current heads of the general staff of the R.H.M.G. her sons?"

A murmer of agreement began to pass among the crowd of reporters, and more of those reporters assembled began to call for the Prime Minister to reveal the whereabouts of the former princess, and some began to murmur about one of her sons being named rightful heir.

Damn. They're right about the two troublesome generals. He thought to himself. Why hadn't he remembered that? It was a mistake. One that would cost him in the short term, but the foundation of his argument would still be strong. "This debate is pointless." He finally said, raising his voice over the growing chorus. "As I said, the princess abdicated. Her claims and those of any descendant of hers are, for that reason, by determination of parliament, forfeit."

"Except parliament has no right to determine that. According to the charter, the eligibility of an heir is determined by the 'Supreme Commander of the Hyrule Armed Forces' and the eight Sages." The first reporter said again. "Prime Minister, you have no idea the kinds of things you're trying to meddle with."

Great, a religious nut. The Prime Minister thought to himself, smirking in contempt. As Agahnison scanned the faces of the other reporters again, looking for a common sentiment, he was sorely disappointed.

"This law is effective immediately." He repeated. "I expect all R.H.M.G. commanding officers to contact my office today in acknowledgment of the transfer of authority. No more questions." He said, and then hurriedly left the room.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

The short black cloaked figure followed the Prime Minister unseen through the stately, marble and wood decorated halls of the Hyrule Parliament building after leaving the press conference. Or, more correctly, he followed the Prime Minister's shadow. The man himself seemed arrogant to the four foot mouse, and overreaching, but if what Daniel Jackson had told the mouse was true, he was otherwise powerless. His demands from the military were impotent, and those who actually understood anything about Hyrule's government knew it. The people of Hyrule had long memories, and they didn't seem to abandon their traditions and loyalties lightly. Most of the people of Hyrule anyways.

As Mickey Mouse watched the man's shadow however, he became more and more concerned. If one watched it carefully enough. it seemed to move with a will of its own, and there was a malevolent feel coming from it that seemed to influence everyone he passed in some way. Mickey was becoming convinced there was a 'heartless' somehow hiding in the man's shadow.

Mickey knew the creatures he knew as heartless weren't native to this world, but were "imports" from his own realms by the late Master Xehanort. They were usually created when the darkness in a person's heart consumed them, giving the darkness a physical shape and form. But if the mouse was right, this one was a little different, the darkness having consumed the heart after the soul, the shadow, had left the body.

The Prime Minister was agitated as he marched to his office in his tailored black and gray suit. Mickey barely had time to duck in before the angry Hylian man slammed the door, nearly breaking the glass window inset. The cloaked mouse moved off to a corner of the large, modern looking office and stayed as still as possible as he continued to observe and look for an opening. He would need to be quick with his keyblade to sever the connection between the corrupted shadow and the man casting it.

"Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!" The man swore loudly as he paced around his office. "Why can't they see it's time to move on and embrace the future?" He asked seemingly to no one. "Damn religious superstitions! They'd rather have a princess who abandoned them for a backwoods farm than govern themselves!" He snorted in exasperation.

And then the man stopped and the expression on his face changed as though the empty office had answered back. Mickey hadn't heard anything, and he was perfectly capable of hearing a pin drop from two offices away with the size of his ears.

"What are you saying?" The man said to the empty air as Mickey watched. Mickey's eyes trailed from the man himself to the light shadow being cast on the wall by the afternoon sunlight coming in through the window. The shadow appeared to be moving its head as though it were speaking.

"No, no. That would never work. It must be the people who decide." Agahnison said in response, though his voice seemed uncertain. "True, sometimes the people don't always know what's best for them. Sometimes they need more than a little push."

The shadow's head continued to move as though talking. Mickey had seen enough. He would only have one chance at this. He opened his white gloved right hand and a weapon shaped like an old skeleton key appeared in his hand. Then everything went sideways.

The shadow's eyes glowed a golden yellow as it immediately turned them towards the mouse, drawn to the keyblade like a homing beacon, and the Prime Minister's head followed suit. Agahnison's eyes had a yellow tint to them that Mickey hadn't noticed before.

"Who are you?" The Prime Minister's voice became deep and gravelly as his eyes bored holes into the mouse.

The keyblade struck at the man's shadow as Mickey leapt into the air and brought it down hard, but the gold metal of the blade only struck the plush blue carpet as the shadow retreated into the Prime Minister himself.

"Choose carefully." The Prime Minister spoke again in the unnaturally deep voice, his eyes glazed over with a sickly yellow light. "You strike and you kill the living. Not something a servant of the light likes to dirty his hands with, is it?"

Holding himself in a battle stance in front of the man, his keyblade held firmly in both hands, Mickey didn't answer. The element of surprise had been taken from him, but there were other options as he pointed the key shaped weapon at the man's chest. A beam of bright golden light shot from the blade, aimed for the Prime Minister's heart, but the man dodged out of the way faster than a mortal should have been able, and the beam of light struck the wall behind harmlessly him.

"Really?" He asked, staring at Mickey with contempt. "I don't know who you are, or what kind of weapon that is, but you have a lot to learn little mouse."

The Prime Minister's hands began to pulse with a dark energy that grew and pulsed with power. "The kingdom is mine." He told the mouse as he raised one hand and a ball of dark energy formed.

Mickey thought fast. Then the whole office was filled with a blinding burst of light and the Prime Minister's unholy deep throated shout of pain. When the light had died down again, Mickey was gone.

The Prime Minister blinked his eyes several times trying to clear them and remember what had just transpired over the last several minutes. The only image which would come to his mind was a strange hooded figure jumping at him and trying to strike him with a raised key shaped weapon.

"Great goddesses." He exclaimed with a gasp. "Someone tried to kill me."

The Sage of Time stood in the ruins of the ancient temple in front of the stone altar carved with the sigils of the three goddesses. In a way, it was surreal, seeing the great entry hall in this way, crumbling and rotting from a passage of time he no longer normally experienced. Next to him stood the daughter of the goddess whom he served dressed very much like her mother had been decades, and even centuries before. Around them as witnesses stood a hundred Guardsmen and several carried video recording devices, capturing every detail of the ancient rite of succession.

Mr. Impaz held the diadem the Triforce had bestowed on Malona in his hands. In a way, he mused to himself, this ceremony was merely a formality. But it was an important one. The Sages had the responsibility of crowning the monarch of Hyrule, and of determining who was fit to wear that crown. He had spent the last several hours in silent but meaningful communication with his brother and sister Sages over their special mental link discussing this very issue. They had all been of one mind. There was only one candidate for the throne, and that was the one chosen by the goddesses through the Triforce.

He faced her, looking into the woman's deep blue eyes, holding the diadem high above them both. She looked so much like the young woman he had served as a secretary so many years ago.

He began the ancient rite, "Who are you, that you should be found worthy to wield the power to rule?" He questioned her.

"I am the daughter of Zelda, the granddaughter of a King, and the descendant of the goddess Hylia." She responded in a monotone voice.

"What proof do you give of your wisdom to govern this people?" He questioned.

She held up her left hand for all to see, and the cameras zoomed in on the triangle mark etched with golden light, the solid triangle of the triforce of Wisdom glowed bright gold for all to see. "I have been chosen by the goddesses to bear the Triforce of Wisdom."

Standing nearby, her brothers, Daphnes and Gaepora, still wearing the Hero's garb touched the backs of the left hands to cover them, as the marks etched on each of them also lit up uncomfortably.

"How do you display your courage to defend the people of the United Kingdom of Hyrule against the darkness which threatens them?" The Sage questioned for a third time.

Malona drew the Master Sword from the scabbard on her back for all to see and raised it high, the tip of the blade pointing into the sky. The blade began to pulse with energy and light. "I am the chosen of the goddesses and able to wield the Master Sword of my ancestor, the goddess Hylia in their defense." Malona then point the tip off towards the side of a nearby cliff and released the pent up energy. It slammed into the rock and stone sidewall and the whole area quaked with its power.

"What name do you take, daughter of Hylia, keeper of the Triforce of Wisdom, and wielder of the Sacred Blade of Evil's Bane, to rule the United Kingdom with Power, Wisdom, and Courage?"

Malona hesitated for a second, and then proceeded, not with her own name, but with the name that welled up within her and wouldn't be denied. "I take the name Zelda, daughter of the Hero of Hyrule, Link, and the Princess Zelda, and granddaughter of King Daphnes Johnson."

A number of gasps and murmurs ran through the gathered soldiers as they witnessed the ritual. Many traced the three triangles across their faces and shoulders as they lowered their heads reverently.

"Do you, Zelda, daughter of the Hero Link and the Princess Zelda, granddaughter of Daphnes, King of Hyrule, keeper of the Triforce of Wisdom, so solemnly swear in the presences of the goddesses Din, Nayru, and Farore, and the people of the Kingdom of Hyrule to rule and guide our people with Power, Wisdom, and Courage for the benefit of all the people and races of the Kingdom of Hyrule, forsaking your own will, desires, and even your very life as a living sacrifice according to the laws and traditions of this blessed land?"

Zelda responded clearly and loudly so all could hear her, "I so solemnly swear."

The Sage then raised his voice to those guardsmen witnessing the ancient rite in the ruins of the Temple of Time, "Do you here witnessing this rite swear to aid and assist Zelda in her duties and responsibilities as the sovereign monarch of our blessed land? Do you swear fealty to her, and to defend her and her rule against all threats foreign and domestic, and if necessary, give your lives in her service?"

With one voice that sounded like thunder the whole gathering of Guardsmen drew their swords, dropped to one knee, holding the hilt of the sword with their hands and burying the tip in the ancient, crumbling marble floor they responded, "We do solemnly swear!"

As Malona's eyes darted to where her brothers had been standing, she almost panicked but then recovered quickly when she found both of her brothers on their knees, their own swords drawn swearing fealty and self-sacrifice to their little sister.

"Then by the authority of the three goddesses, Din, Nayru, and Farore, and with the blessing of the goddess Hylia, I crown you Zelda, Sovereign Queen of the United Kingdom of Hyrule." Mr. Impaz lowered the diadem onto Malona's head in the act of coronation. "Rule these people then, in the name of the goddess Hylia with Power, Wisdom and Courage... your majesty."

The sage then took the newly crowned, slightly trembling queen by the hand and turned her to face the Guardsmen, who had not risen from their kneeling position. She still held the Master Sword in her left hand. "I present to you all, your sovereign queen, Zelda, the thirty second of that name."

The sage then walked slowly and reverently around his queen, and stopped a few feet in front of her, and then joined the other men in dropping to one knee before her and saying in a loud voice, "I, Thaddeo Impaz, Sage of the goddess Hylia, pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor to serve your majesty, Queen Zelda of Hyrule."

Malona looked out at the kneeling men. She then looked to her brothers who remained on their knees. Great goddesses, this is for real, she thought to herself. "Snap out of it, Malona," she told herself silently. "This is what the Triforce test told you who you were. You were born for this."

She took the sword and pointed it towards the gathered soldiers on their knees and said, "I accept your fealty and your service in the name of the goddess Hylia. Rise, Guardsmen. Rise, Sage of Time."

And the cameras continued to roll, even as their operators rose to their own feet behind them.

The coronation had been broadcasted across the R.H.M.G.'s emergency broadcast system. Everyone in Western Hyrule who had been near a working television, video monitor, networked computer, or mobile computing device had received the streaming, live broadcast.

After the broadcast had ended, and communications had returned to normal, the news networks went into overdrive re-broadcasting the video. Legal and political analysts dissected it relentlessly, only to all come to the same conclusion, that it was a perfectly legitimate, legal coronation of a previously unknown woman who was unmistakably of royal lineage, with one commentator stating bluntly that "the R.H.M.G. senior staff has just given parliament their answer."

Within the hour, the governor of the province of Ordon held a news conference officially recognizing the legal validity of the new queen, and expressly condemning the "emergency" law written by the parliament earlier in the day. An hour later, the governor of Faron Province followed suit. Before midnight, the Council of the Zora and the Goron Nation had both gone on official record as recognizing the legitimacy of the coronation of Queen Zelda the thirty second of Hyrule.

The scattered R.H.M.G. barracks had already been given secured messages from their general staff about the coronation and its legitimacy, and so the broadcast been expected. Not one Guard Captain sent in the "acknowledgement" requested by the Prime Minister and parliament.

Parliament, however, was strangely silent about the broadcast, or the public response. News outlet after news outlet tried to get through to the Prime Minister's office for comment or official position, but there was nothing. The Parliament building's doors were shut and locked, and strangely all the lights in the building, which usually had at least someone working late into the night every night, had gone dark.

Some reporters attempted to contact the Prime Minister or members of his cabinet at their own private residences in the city, but no one, not even their personal family members would pick up their telephones. No one could seem to make contact with any of the regular Ministers of Parliament either.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

"Aw, Daniel, why'd you grab me so fast? I've faced bigger and more powerful heartless than him." Mickey asked Daniel when the ascended being finally set him down again. They were somewhere in a forest, though Mickey didn't recognize where just yet.

"That may be true, Mickey, but I saw your hesitation. He was right, in order to destroy the heartless, you would have had to kill the host too. You've destroyed heartless before, but you haven't killed a flesh and blood person before, have you?" Daniel asked him, explaining.

Mickey's eyes lowered to the ground. "No." He answered, taking a breath and sighing in his high voice. "No, I haven't." Then, thinking it through, he said, "You're right, Daniel. I couldn't have done it, not when there was a chance of saving the man, as much of a jerk as he might be."

Daniel gave a half smile and replied, "I don't think that's all him, not from what I was able to see in his mind. I think the shadow is influencing him a lot. Agahnison seems like just a convenient pawn to it, if I was to make an educated guess."

"You sound like you dealt with this kind of thing before." Mickey observed.

An expression of sadness crossed Daniel's face as he tried giving another small smile, "More often than I wanted to." He replied, painful memories of another lifetime crossing his mind.

"So what now?" Mickey asked. "What's our next move?"

"Well, neither I nor the Others can do anything about the shadow. The only reason I knew what was happening in the office was because I could see it through your eyes and mind. Sorry about the intrusion by the way, it's uh, something that's just a part of being ascended. I can't really help it." Daniel told him.

"It's okay, Daniel. I understand." Mickey said reassuringly.

"Right." Daniel paused for a minute, startled by how similar this real live person was to the cartoon character he had watched most of his childhood. Then he continued, "Okay, so our best bet right now would probably be to get a hold of Link and Zelda's children, the two Generals and the newly crowned queen and compare notes. But..." he trailed off for just a second, "if we do that, I have to stay out of it as much as possible, which means you'd be on your own with them."

"Why?" Mickey asked.

"Because I'm really only here on the good graces of the Others here in Hyrule, and while they tend to be a little more willing to act to prevent mass catastrophe, they still don't want any of us to interfere too much with those here on the mortal plane. And I've already pushed it farther than I probably should have. I've brought you here not far from the Sacred Grove command post where the new queen and royal guard are. You shouldn't have any problem getting in and making contact with them with your cloaking spell and trenchcoat." Daniel pointed in the direction of the security fence just beyond the trees.

Mickey looked in the direction he pointed. "Okay, thanks Daniel. So is this goodbye?"

There was no answer from Daniel's direction, and Mickey turned his head back towards where his friend had been standing, but there was no one there. "I guess so. Well, goodbye Daniel. I hope we see each other again." He said into the air, and then, covering his head and large round ears with the cowl of his black trenchcoat, he cast his cloaking spell over himself again, and began his stealthy march through the woods towards the Sacred Grove.

As Mickey walked off in the darkness through the trees, another presence that had been watching the exchange unseen and unrecognized began to follow the four foot mouse discreetly, filled with concern at all that had occurred in her absence. As she moved through the woods, two other presences fell into step behind her, and they began to move as one once more.

The Three questioningly acknowledged the presence of the one not from Hyrule briefly. He did the equivalent of stepping to the side in submission. Satisfied, they nodded and continued to follow the mouse.

Malona stood in the command center of the mobile R.H.M.G. headquarters established at the Sacred Grove command post. No one questioned her right to be there any longer. No one, that is, except her, but she kept her own doubts to herself as she watched the reports from the various guard posts come in through the computer systems. Two news networks were also running on two separate monitors with constant updates.

The command post was fully staffed around her, regardless of the late hour. The regular day staff had been relieved of their duties only to have another round of guardsmen come in and take over as though nothing had changed, except perhaps the amount of strong tea consumption, and the caffeine intake that went with it. Her own calloused but feminine hands, finally free of the white silk gloves held a now warm mug herself. The pink dress had finally been allowed to be retired to a closet as a fresh, gray guard field uniform in the smallest size possible with her name and "rank" on it was procured for her by a field wizard on staff. It made her feel somewhat "normal" again, though the Triforce diadem remained firmly encircled around her head. Her brothers had retired to bunks in the barracks some time before.

"Your majesty," the Guard Captain in command of the regular post here, a Hylian man, but with an Ordonian accent, named Daltus, had said, "wouldn't it be better for you to rest for now?" His voice had sincere concern for her in it. But she wouldn't have it.

"If I am queen now, then I need to know what's happening in my kingdom right now." She had responded. "I didn't ask for this job, Captain. But I'm going to do it right regardless."

"As you wish, your majesty." He had said in response thoughtfully before he ended his own watch for the night. His respect for the former farm woman growing with every encounter.

That encounter had been hours ago, but whether it was the caffeine from the tea, or the magnitude of all that had transpired that day, she still couldn't bring herself to be tired enough to retire. Most of the reports had died down as it approached an hour after midnight, and there wasn't much new, but she kept her eyes focused on the screens, taking in as much as she could while still trying to come to terms with everything which had happened to her that day.

Near as she could tell, two provincial governors, and the ruling councils of the Zora and the Gorons, the other "kingdoms" represented in the "United Kingdom of Hyrule", gave vocal and public recognition to her as their queen. Several local city politicians from all over Hyrule did the same, including, she noted with some amused appreciation, the mayor of Ordonville. Years before, when they were still in High School, Malo had been one of the less popular, more brainy kids in school who got straight "A"s and had a persistent crush on her. In retrospect, she thought, he probably would have been a better choice than her then boyfriend, the father of her two sons who got her pregnant out of high school and then took off. Malo had remained a decent friend though they had never been close, while her fencing team boyfriend moved to Castleton after graduation and she never heard from him again.

She was queen now. That made her sons, twins, both princes. Now there was a thought! She mused. As if they didn't have enough to swell their heads. She had not only accepted the burden for herself, but she accepted it for them too, because, once she was gone, one of them would have to take her place. Did she really have any right to do that to them? But then, she didn't have any say in it either. Not really. Not for a daughter of Zelda, and not for a direct descendant of the Lady Hylia.

No matter which way you cut that descent, that's exactly who Malona was, and it was also something she was struggling to come to terms with. Take your pick, you could say Hylia was Malona's ancient ancestor, or you could say she was her mother. Both were equally true. And as such, whether Malona liked it or not, it meant that she was born to protect and serve Hyrule with her life if necessary.

"Did you know?" She asked her mother in a whisper, a single small tear dropping out of her eye and down her cheek. She supposed she could hear her question now. Whether she would answer or not was another question.

Her mother had been her best friend all of her life. They were so much alike as she grew up that people often joked about it. Now, it didn't seem so funny as she understood why they were so much alike. For all intents and purposes, she was a genetic copy of her mother in every way.

"Did you know that too?" She asked again. Was it some fluke, or had her mother planned it? Or one of her "grandmothers," maybe? Was there something genetically programmed into all of Hylia's female descendants, or was it intentional somehow? The only person who knew the answer to that now no longer walked as a mortal woman to whom she could just walk the mile down the gravel road and talk about anything and everything.

Her eyes began to water more, and she set her mug of cooling tea down to head outside. She didn't think the soldiers inside needed to see their new monarch break down in tears crying for the loss of her mother.

She moved towards the door of the small room that had grown so much smaller with all the new equipment which had been brought from the capital. The guardsmen at the door snapped to attention and a quick salute as she passed by them. She wanted to tell them, "please don't," but she knew it wouldn't do any good, and probably wouldn't be good for anyone. It would have just been her trying to pretend that she was still just a farmer from south of Ordonville. That pleasant fiction would never be true for her again. "I am Zelda." She told herself silently, and then attempted to return the salute with the same respect they had shown her, and then she crossed the short hallway, passing two more guardsmen and returning their salutes as well, and then left the building.

Outside, the cool, early winter night air was more invigorating than the tea had been. Her goat hair lined field jacket kept her warm enough though. The smell of the woods around the post was somewhat intoxicating, and also added to her melancholy as it made her think of her home, just an hour or two's drive south of here, she thought. She wondered how her sons and her uncle and his family were doing. How had they taken the broadcast? She wondered.

"Your majesty, can I assist you?" One guardsman asked her as she walked away from the barracks' main building and toward the stables where the horses the post still maintained for traversing the Faron forest trails when necessary.

"No thank you. I'm fine guardsman." She said, lying. "I am just going for a walk."

"Of course, your majesty. If you require anything, I am at your service." He replied, and then went back to his guard duty.

She nodded, and continued towards the stables. Out of anything else here, the sight and smell of horses, even sleeping ones, sounded like the most comforting thing she could think of. It was as close as she was going to get to ever feeling at home again.

As she entered the stables, she was greeted with the familiar smells of hay and horse feces. Perhaps someone from Castleton would have found it revolting, but at that moment, it was the most magnificent perfume she could think of and she inhaled deeply, feeling just a little bit better as she entered and walked past the uniform gray and white painted stalls of the sleeping animals.

It looked like the Guard post here kept about ten or fifteen mounts. Most of them looked to be between fifteen and sixteen hands high, and all of them looked to be sorrel hill country breeds local to Faron and Ordon. She wondered if any of them had been sourced from her neighbors who raised horses. It was warm in the stable compared with the outside air. None of the animals had or seemed to need blankets against the cold night air which had dropped just below freezing, she was certain.

It might have seemed an insane thought to others, but she suddenly wondered if she could bed down in here with the animals. Then she chastised herself, and shoved the thought out of her mind. Yes, they might let her. She was the queen, she didn't have to give them the choice, but being the queen wasn't about her getting what she wanted, it was about giving everything for the people she was to rule. Part of that was maintaining a certain respect and dignity for the office. Her own desires didn't figure into it.

"Uh, hello?" Came a high pitched voice, and Malona was startled out of her own thoughts as she whirled around expecting to see someone attached to it, but saw no one.

"Who?" She called out, her voice and expression retreating from the vulnerability she had allowed herself over the past little while into something harder. "Guardsman, show yourself immediately." She ordered, and for a minute she almost wondered who had given the order because it had sounded so unlike how she had been feeling. She felt the weight of the Master Sword still secured in its scabbard at her back. Her left hand went to it instinctively, though she didn't draw it yet.

"Uh, okay." Came the voice, "But I'm not a Guardsman, your majesty. You could say I'm an old friend of your parents." The voice came from behind her, and she turned around again.

Stand in front of her on two legs hidden by a long black trenchcoat was a four foot tall black rodent with a tan face and black nose. On his head were two large, circular ears. His four fingered hands were hidden in white cloth gloves. He had kind, friendly eyes, and a matching smile. "Well, here I am."

"Who are you?" She demanded from him, her hand still on the hilt of her sword.

"My friends call me Mickey." He gave a small, high chuckle which died a little in his throat upon seeing the hardened expression in her eyes. It reminded him of the expression her father had when there was "work" that had to be done. "Uh, Mickey Mouse, your majesty. I'm sorry to surprise you like this. I promise, I don't mean any harm. I really am, or I was, a friend of your parents from a long time ago. Uh, I'm just here to help, honest." He said, eying her hand on the hilt. He knew there was every probability he could best her in combat, but that didn't mean he wanted the chance to try. He was really here to help.

Malona looked in his eyes for several seconds, weighing his words against what she saw there. Then, she slowly took her hand of the hilt of the sword. "Alright, Mickey. Let's talk." She said.

About twenty minutes later, Malona burst back into the command center, a mouse in a black trenchcoat in tow. "Wake my brothers!" She gave orders to the Guardsmen on duty. They moved immediately to carry out her orders. When one of them began to question the presence of the unusual guest she cut him off, "The mouse is with me." And no one questioned him after that.

An hour and a half later, by order of her majesty, all R.H.M.G. units in Castleton, assisted by Guard field wizards, surrounded the darkened parliament building, though none attempted entry. Spells were enacted to surround the building in a bubble with radiant light magic turned inwards towards the building itself in an attempt to contain the darkness within. Though when the guardsmen arrived, it hadn't appeared like it had spread any farther than the building itself.

Except for the parliament building, the rest of Castleton's late night life was still in full swing as theater goers, late night workers, and other denizens of Castleton's streets at night looked on in confusion at the obvious show of force by the R.H.M.G. against the parliament. They began to complain loudly as the guardsmen attempted to clear a zone around the building from any onlookers or bystanders. A few made remarks to the effect that maybe the Prime Minister was right, though these were in the rare minority.

And then, in a flash of green light, there stood a blond Hylian woman with a royal diadem dressed in a gray military field uniform, a large sword with a sapphire blue handle strapped to her back. With her were two men dressed in archaic green and red tunics and chain mail carrying standard issue R.H.M.G. swords and shields, and a short black figure that resembled a large rodent. In his right hand was a gold and silver weapon shaped like an old skeleton key. The four materialized with the array of police-soldiers in-between them and the parliament building contained in light.

"CAPTAIN!" The woman shouted with authority towards the guardsmen nearest to her, and everyone on the street heard her voice as they turned and looked. The guardsmen at the scene appeared to be somewhat stunned at her appearance, but not surprised as a muscularly built man with graying hair ran up to the woman and dropped to one knee in front of her.

She tapped him on the shoulder, and he got to his feet and began speaking to her. "The building is contained with the strongest light magics the field wizards know, your majesty. I've seen these kinds of spells repel some pretty nasty redeads and gibdos in my time of service, your majesty. If there's any dark shades in there, they're not getting through the containment wall."

As the people on the streets watched the scene with the strange but very familiar characters before them, a hushed quiet descended over them and then a whispered name began to pass along on their lips with reverence, "It's Zelda." And again, "Zelda's come back." One older man pulled out a one rupee bill and held it up, comparing the image on it to the face of the woman he could see clearly across the street. As he confirmed what he suspected, he held the rupee note high for everyone to see and shouted joyfully with tears in his eyes, "Our Princess has returned!" And then the chant was taken up as others pulled out one rupee notes and held them in the air, "Zelda! Zelda! Zelda!"

Then a news van pulled around the corner and a cameraman and reporter jumped out and began to film the scene, as the four newcomers waded into the mass of guardsmen, the crowned woman still listening to what the guard captain was telling her. Two more news vans pulled into the city center and began filming as well.

The blond woman turned her face towards the growing, chanting crowd. Her eyes were filled with a sad determination, but she smiled at them anyway. Then she turned her face back to the parliament building, and drew the blue hilted sword from her back, gripping it in her left hand with purpose.

She gestured for the man who came with her dressed in red to remain with the R.H.M.G. field wizards. His expression became somewhat uncertain, but he nodded his head in obedience and joined the group of men, who all saluted him and snapped to immediate attention in his presence. A golden glow flashed from his left hand as he lifted it and added his own power to theirs.

And then the remaining three newcomers walked up towards the containment shield, weapons in hand, and crossed through it.


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

The Parliament Building of the United Kingdom of Hyrule was the oldest "modern" building in Castleton. It had been commissioned well over a century before by the Royal Family to house the people's legislature, representatives, and superior judicial body as an expression of support in the continuing democratic reforms proposed by the successive monarchs after the reign of the Great Queen Malon.

It was her son, King John who first began the shift of legislative powers away from the throne and proposed the Great Charter between the people of Hyrule and their monarchy in response to the unrest caused by the then short lived rebellion of Eastern Hyrule. The people, he reasoned, needed to know that their monarchy existed to serve and protect them, not to dominate them. At the same point in time, it was also understood by all that the monarchy had been established by the goddesses and had historically served a vital function as a kind of intermediary between the people and the divine in the protection and maintenance of their world.

With this in mind, the Great Charter of Hyrule was born. The parliament, made up of elected ministers representing their districts within the provinces, would write the laws which governed the people's daily lives, and would enforce those laws through the exercise of Hyrule's judicial system. Hyrule's monarchy would retain full, indisputable oversight and control over the military forces which would also act as law enforcement during peace time (traditionally exercised by the "Supreme Commander"), as well as full oversight over all sacred spaces, temples, religious icons, and interactions with the Sages and their acolytes (traditionally exercised by the crown prince or princess). The monarchy also retained, as head of state, the right of veto over legislation which it deemed "harmful to the well being of the realm", though it had been rarely used in the two hundred year history of the legislative body. Finally, the monarchy retained the position of final, supreme judge over criminal and civil disputes brought to the monarch by appeals. The dispensation of final justice was the governmental duty most often exercised by the reigning king or queen. All other powers and responsibilities: the royal treasury, taxation, education, health services, diplomacy and others were all handled by the Ministers of Parliament as representatives of the people with the support and blessing of the Monarchy.

Hyrule's first Parliament had met in an ancient amphitheater overlooking a cliff southwest of Old Castletown for several years, royal architects eventually enclosing it and adding rooms and offices to the ever expanding building as the functions of Parliament grew. Eventually the Parliament outgrew the ancient site and any more additions that could be squeezed into the confined space, and the Monarchy proposed the new "modern" building to be erected at the heart of a new city center for the expanding city of Castleton.

It was built somewhat to resemble both a temple or cathedral and a fortress at the same time, as the side which faced the city center sported white marble columns, and the central meeting chamber of the marble and stone building was covered over with a great stained glass dome held up by a steel frame overlaid with gold, yet the building was also laid out so as to have towers with parapets at its four corners. The whole effect of the building was intended to project reverence for the divine, benevolence of the monarchy, and power in the hands of the people.

As Malona, Daphnes, and Mickey crossed the barrier of inward directed light, the whole building was dazzlingly beautiful to look upon. It was so bright from the spells that were cast, having come in from the dark night, the three had to shield their eyes for several minutes before they could see again.

"Wow." Was all Mickey could say at the sight. "It didn't look like this earlier in the day, that's for sure. It's magnificent in the light."

Daphnes looked up at the building, mesmerized by the sight as his eyes adjusted and he was able to take it in. For just an instant, he allowed all that this building had stood for to enter his mind, and he hesitated. For much of his life, he had believed in what this building stood for, and the sight of it in the glory of the light only reinforced that shining image in his mind. Before the last couple of days, he had believed the Prime Minister to be a good man having met him a couple of times in the course of his duties in Castleton.

And then the moment was gone, and Daphnes' expression hardened. There was work to be done. No matter how much Hyrule and its people might have wanted to progress away from its past, there seemed no getting away from the inherent nature of its existence; the inherent struggle it constantly faced between the light and the darkness of the thoughts and beliefs of those who inhabited it. No matter how technologically or socially advanced they might be, Hyrule would always struggle against the darkness, and it would always need the Princess and the Hero to defend against it and do what needed to be done. That was the price for his ancestors introducing intelligent life to this world. He understood that now. His own Silent Realm test had made that clear.

Daphnes took one glance back at his brother who stood behind the barrier adding his own considerable power, enhanced by the Triforce of Power, to the field wizards' magic and nodded. Gaepora smiled grimly and nodded back. They didn't need to use words to communicate. The brothers knew that they both had each other's backs, and they both had their own roles to play.

He then looked down at his own left hand, the back of which was covered by a leather and steel guantlet, but he could see the outline of golden triangles there, shining through the gauntlet from being so close to the other two pieces of the Triforce, nonetheless. The Triforce of Courage had chosen him. He had never considered himself a courageous man. He couldn't, because he knew deep in his own heart it wasn't the truth. He had grown up afraid, terrified, of what his destiny might be because of who his father was. He had lived with that fear each time he had been called into combat. He had fought against it time and again when he was called on to serve. But it had never gone away. And yet the Triforce of Courage, his father's Triforce really, had chosen him. It had demanded that he take his father's place or watch his world and all he loved be consumed by the darkness and fall into chaos. Once more he had been called to serve. Once more it had terrified him. And once more, he fought against his fear, and answered the call. Was that what his father had done? He didn't know the answer to that question. He didn't know if he ever would. But it didn't matter. He had a job to do. And he was going to do it or die trying. He owed his dad, his mom, and his world that much.

Sword in his left hand, shield in the other he moved forward, ahead of his sister and their unusual companion. Both his regulation sword and shield had been enchanted, infused with light magic by his brother to be more effective against the dark creatures, former ministers of parliament, he expected to find. According to the mouse, there was little hope of saving any of them. Some of them had been friends and colleagues that had gone into politics. When they were done, Hyrule would be without a functioning parliament for the first time in centuries. Martial law would have to be enacted and new elections held after a period of mourning. Great goddesses, what a way for a new monarch to take power and defend the people!

His expression hardened even more. He would be doing them no favors by allowing sentiment to cloud his judgment. Instead, anger welled up inside of him. It was an anger at the darkness, an anger at the man who had brought the darkness this time, and an anger at the circumstances. He used that anger to harden his resolve even more. His objective was clear, as the mouse had advised. This was an extermination. There would be, and therefore there could be, no survivors.

He glanced behind him to his sister, his queen. Malona had replaced the sword back into its scabbard and a gleeming bow had appeared in her hand with a quiver of golden arrows at her side. He didn't know where they had come from. They certainly weren't standard issue. But, in her hands they looked just right. She had always been better with a bow than a sword (not that she couldn't bring him to a stalemate in a duel), and seeing her with a radiant golden arrow nocked just looked, and felt, right.

He nodded at her too. She nodded slowly in response. Looking back at the mouse, the same gesture was repeated as the short figure carried his skeleton key weapon in his right hand like an experienced duelist. Something told Daphnes, as unassuming and non threatening as Mickey Mouse presented himself, he didn't want to get into a duel with him either.

It might have made no sense to the casual observer, but the rest of the guardsmen around the perimeter of the barrier were ordered to hold their positions and not come with them. That was on the strong recommendation of the mouse. The fewer people that entered the building, the fewer potential losses they would have to the "heartless" they would find inside who would already be chomping at the bit from the presence of the two "keyblades"; mouse's weapon and the Master Sword. And every soul lost to a heartless was a new heartless they would have to dispatch.

He looked back towards the building, up the steps to the main front doors. They were made of thick, bulletproof glass with shining brass trim and handles. The radiant light from the barrier shone through the doors and he could see part of the entry hall beyond.

He stepped forward and strode cautiously up the marble steps to the entry doors. The light from the barrier could only reach so far. The darkness of the shadows beyond it looked palpable, tangible, and constantly shifting, even though the source of light was constant. Shining yellow pairs of eyes could be seen moving among the shifting shadows.

Behind him, Malona and Mickey came up and observed the same thing. "You can't do anything for them now except end their suffering." The mouse said. "There's nothing left of the good people the heartless once were. Nothing we can save, at least."

"I know. Let's just get this over with." Daphnes responded, wondering what he was going to say to his wife. Her father had been the Minister of Parliament for her home district. He didn't know if he had been in the building earlier in the day, but if parliament had been in session, there was every chance he was. The man was nothing if not reliable. His sense of duty had, in all likelihood, gotten him killed that day. He forced the thought out of his mind again. He had a job to do. Sentiment wouldn't help anyone now, not even his father-in-law.

He moved forward and swung open the door, the light behind him casting a long shadow across the checkered black and white marble floor. He crossed the threshold of the doorway and stepped inside. Immediately, the moving darkness, sensing the presence of the two keyblades, took advantage of the shadows he and the two with him created and charged them using their shadows like bridges across the light.

Streaks of light felled the first several before they could reach the tip of his sword as they whizzed past Daphnes' head, as he could hear the telltale sound of arrows being nocked, drawn, and released in rapid succession by the newly crowned queen. His sister was nothing if not deadly accurate with each shot.

They couldn't just leave any alive either, and so Mickey and Daphnes engaged those that escaped being targeted by Malona, blade and key swinging, stabbing, and slicing with a precise ferocity, and without mercy. Heartless fell and disappeared into black smoke. That was the only mercy they could afford to show them.

"They're not particularly powerful heartless, are they?" Mickey commented after he dispatched several of his own. "This is more like slaughter than it is a fight."

"They were just secretaries, receptionists, mail boys, and tourists who happened to visit on the wrong day." Daphnes told him emotionlessly, running another one through. All of the anger and pain the realization of it brought he channeled into the strength he needed to do what needed to be done. The heartless vaporized and he flipped his sword to impale another that had tried to come up behind him. "That's who would have been here in the lobby."

"Yeah, right." Mickey agreed sadly.

They moved forward, deeper into the building, destroying more "infected" shadows as they went.

The three went systematically through the halls and offices beginning first to those on their left hand on the first floor and working their way around the building, leaving no room untouched except for the central chamber of parliament which they saved for the last. More heartless fell as they did, and Daphnes continued to shove the thought of how many of them he had known out of his mind.

It was long tiring work. Before they had entered, they had brought with them special variants of the magical crystals known as Din's Fire, and would ignite them in each room. Instead of setting the room ablaze and burning down the building, however, the room would be filled with a pure, radiant light that continued to burn for twelve hours, and which dark energy creatures couldn't stand to be anywhere near. The field wizards back at the Sacred Grove command post who had devised the new magic on the fly had dubbed it "Hylia's Light". The three had brought enough of the crystals to bathe the entire interior of the parliament building with something akin to intense, white sunlight. This was the only way they could be certain that no heartless would escape the sword or the light arrows.

Outside, Gaepora watched with some relief as, one by one, the darkened windows of the parliament building lit up with Hylia's Light. He had been holding his position with the R.H.M.G. field wizards for hours, lending the strength of the Triforce of Power to theirs. It was a taxing, demanding strain on a magic user to maintain something like this for so long. Many of those guard wizards had been forced to back off and rest while new guardsmen took their place in maintaining the protective barrier of light. He however, had not. The Triforce had sustained him as well as the barrier.

Ironically, "Holy Light" was one of the simpler spells, or manipulations of their world through magic. All they were doing was creating pure light. In its most basic usage, it took no more energy than flipping a light switch. But the guardsmen, and all of Hyrule, didn't just need a light switch. The intensity and purity of the light required a concentration and application of power which, when put to other uses, might level mountains, or even move planetary bodies out of alignment. It took a great deal to emulate pure, intense, sunlight on a scale of this size and then keep it focused in a certain direction so that they didn't light up the entire city in the middle of the night.

Each window which lit up with Hylia's Light was less power they needed to maintain the barrier. After several hours, when window after window lit up, he gave the order to begin drawing in the shield of light towards the building, reducing its size by half, as well as the amount of power it was taking. Eventually, they were able to collapse it past the towers and minerets on the building's four corners, and more of the field wizards were able to rest, though some of them had drained themselves so far they were being looked after by Guard medics and healers.

Gaepora stood his ground, never wavering, even though he was beginning to feel the strain of it too. Right now, those inside needed the Power he could bring to it, and he refused to let them down.

Hylia's Light blazed through the halls and rooms of the interior of the Parliament building, and all around the three figures who now stood in front of the main double doors of the central chamber. There had been hundreds of heartless in the building. Daphnes' face had grown stone cold. Malona's however, could not hide the pain she felt for each former innocent who became a target for her arrows of light, and her cheeks were streaked with tears. Mickey's face bore the weary, but grim determination to see the job through to the end. The mouse alone was feeling the physical toll of the night's work. Neither the Supreme Commander nor the Queen seemed to have any less energy for the task than when they started.

None of them spoke as Daphnes approached the central chamber's solid Deku wood doors inlaid with neutralized time crystals. He attempted to turn the antique door handle, but it wouldn't turn. He then attempted to push the door open, but it resisted.

"Locked tight." He pronounced. "Anyone want to bet the other entry doors are too?"

"Allow me." Mickey told him.

The mouse then pointed his keyblade at the door and a beam of light shot from the tip and into the lock. They heard a click, and the double doors swung slightly inwards, allowing the bright radiant light around them to flow into the inky darkness beyond. As the light entered through the crack, the darkness drew back quickly as though in pain.

"Handy." Daphnes quipped.

"Yep, can be." Mickey responded.

Daphnes pushed the double doors further open with the tip of his sword, his shield, also enchanted with light magics, raised on his right arm as he went into the chamber first. Holy light flooded the doorway and the darkness retreated quickly further into the room as Daphnes entered through the open doorway, flanked to the rear by Malona, light arrow nocked in a golden bow, and Mickey, keyblade at the ready.

Above the central chamber was the great, stained glass dome depicting the Triforce and the goddesses looking down with approval on the ministers of the people. Light from the outside barrier streamed through the glass and bathed the whole chamber in a solemn rainbow of diffused light which the yellow eyed shadows, crouching low among the half-circle amphitheater seating for the ministers, seemed to be trying to avoid, but it didn't seem to be causing the same pain as the light flooding the doorways.

In the center of the chamber's platform stood a single, middle aged man in a gray, stylish, modern, tailored suit. His eyes glowed yellow, and there was an expression of pure hatred in them as he looked upon the newcomers.

"So, the Princess's brats are all dressed up like mommy and daddy!" The man called out to them, contempt filling his voice. "They've come to play, have they?" He then looked to Mickey, and said, "And I see they've brought their pet mouse. How fun."

None of the three responded as they moved forward. Immediately, more heartless attacked them from the sides. Arrows flew, swords sliced. Soon, the number of shades which filled the chamber diminished as they attacked without thought or strategy and fell on Daphnes' enchanted sword, or Mickey's keyblade. The thought of who it might have been persisted in his mind, and he continued to shove it aside.

"Congratulations." The man said, "you've managed to annihilate the entire parliament, and it hasn't even been twenty four hours since your coronation, your majesty. Most impressive. What a stunning victory for the monarchy."

His taunts cut like knives, but none of them allowed the jabs to keep them from their appointed task as they fought their way forward towards the podium.

He kept talking, "It's ironic that you took the name 'Zelda', your majesty." He said. "Since that was the very person I was trying to get out of my way."

At that, Malona's head turned and she responded, "What do you mean?" As she let another arrow fly, hitting a heartless between its yellow eyes, her cheeks wet from the tears shed for the person it had once been.

"Oh. That's right, you don't understand. It was purely by coincidence then. How awkward." The Prime Minister said, his voice dripping with malice. "You see, it was I who infected your mother."

"You?!" She shouted, letting another arrow fly at a former minister of parliament. "How could you?! Why?! We never even saw...!" The questions kept piling up in her mind as she became distracted.

"You swore an oath to the royal family, Agahnison!" Daphnes yelled at him, bashing another heartless in the face with his shield before decapitating it into black smoke. "How could you betray us?! All of us?!"

"Keep your head in the game, soldier!" Mickey shouted at Daphnes as the mouse took out a dark shadow which had almost slipped through the General's defenses. "That's not Agahnison anymore, remember?!"

Agahnison's face grew grim as he replied, "Quite right. Very good, little mouse. Agahnison doesn't live here anymore, now does he?!" He shouted back to them. "No, the good Prime Minister would never have done such a dark thing, now would he have? But oh, was he ambitious. It didn't take much convincing once I set things into motion. Of course, you forced my hand in the last twenty four hours, did you know that? I'm a patient man. I was going to wait. I was going to just let your mother die peacefully from cancer a week or two from now, and then slowly remove all of Hylia's remaining heirs, making it look like death from natural causes or illness. A final, quiet end to an unnaturally long existence. No one would have suspected."

The shadows in the central chamber finally grew completely still, and nothing seemed to move within the great amphitheater. All the heartless had been destroyed. All except one.

"I don't understand." Malona said. "Why would you hate my mother so much? She was a good woman who spent her entire life with everyone else's best interests at heart!"

"Hate her? Hate Zelda?" The man seemed genuinely hurt. "Why would I hate my own daughter?" He asked. "No! I loved my daughter more than you can possibly know. No, I hate the goddess who possessed my daughter and took my little girl from me; that light bitch Hylia! The damned goddess that continuously reincarnated herself, shining her damned, painful light, and stamping her image across all of her direct female descendants, yourself included my dear." A dark aura began to spread around the Prime Minister's body. "I was going to take my daughter's shadow somewhere peaceful where the light could never make demands on her, could never hurt her again!" His voice became angrier, the rage and pain nearly palpable in it. "And you ruined it! Now, Hylia has her forever!"

Dark balls of energy formed in his hands and he began to raise them menacingly. "You know, in life I never used magic. I was taught to use it as a boy. Everyone is who attends a good Hylian school. But it was never my interest. I never fully understood what I was actually capable of until I spent time in the shadow realm. Did you know that a person's magic stays with him after he dies?"

He let one of the balls of dark energy fly. It sped towards the queen faster than she could react, and then she saw the gold and silver blur of a large key pass inches in front of her as it swung at the ball of energy like a bat and the dark projectile was redirected back at the figure on the podium. At the last minute, a circle of darkness formed in front of the man, and the energy ball hit it and ricocheted off into the seats where it exploded, destroying several rows of cushioned seating in a section.

"As it turns out, the magic within me is quite powerful." The shadow possessing the Prime Minister told them.

"Snap out of it, guys!" Mickey yelled at his companions. "It doesn't matter who he is or was! The darkness has taken him! We've got a job to do, remember?!"

In response Malona nocked another arrow, and let it fly as she, Daphnes and Mickey drew close to the antique Deku wood podium where the possessed man was standing. The arrow struck it's target in Agahnison's chest, and then held fast. But the man just looked down at it, pulled it out, and laughed. And then his laughter grew ominously.

"Really?!" He asked. "Did it occur to you that as long as I hold this body, your light magic can't harm me? I can just walk through all of that uncomfortably pure light you spread around this building."

"That can be rectified." Daphnes said as he charged the man with his sword.

The General then found himself being blown backwards with a wave of darkness as he crashed painfully sideways into a row of seats, falling to the floor. His sword and shield tumbled out of his hands, and he moved his body slowly as he tried to get up.

"I'm sure it could, General." The possessed man said. "If you could get close enough to me to do it."

Malona's bow disappeared from her hands, and she drew the Master Sword from her back. She dove for the shield her brother had been carrying and knelt in front of the injured man with the shield raised in front of both of them. Mickey joined her, keyblade raised. But neither of them knew what to do from there. Malona knew very little magic, and none of Mickey's light magic would damage the shade while it was still surrounded by Agahnison's flesh.

"You see, as courageous and cunning as the three of you might be," Agahnison's voice told them, "you just don't have the power to defeat me. I on the other hand," the dark aura spread from the man's body and began to cover and dominate the entire chamber, "have all the powers of darkness at my command. If I can't have my daughter's soul to let her rest in peace, I'll satisfy myself with tormenting your souls for eternity!"

The darkness which began to spread around the chamber became thick and tangible, blotting out all the light from the open door and the stained glass dome. The air became thick with it, and it became difficult for the three of them to breath.

"Slowly, but certainly, your airways will be cut off. Then, your brains will have only a few minutes of oxygen at best." Agahnison's voice taunted them. Then your hearts will stop beating and your own shades will leave those restricting masses of flesh. You'd be surprised at how liberating death can be. Then our real fun can begin."

A powerful burst of pure, white light blasted through the chamber slamming into the solidifying darkness and dissolving it into nothingness. The air around the three began to clear, and they were able to breath again.

"You want to see power, demon?" A man's voice shouted from the open doorway. "I'll show you what real power looks like!" He held up his left hand where a single triangle of light burned white and hot.

"What?! No!" The possessed man shouted. He threw out his arms and gathered the darkness around himself again preparing to blast the newcomer.

But Gaepora extended his own arms, and more light poured from his hands, bathing the entire room in its brilliant radiance, banishing the darkness the Prime Minister's hands were trying to form.

"Malona, now!" Gaepora yelled, and his sister didn't hesitate.

Malona leapt from where she had been, somersaulted in the air and brought the tip of the blade of evil's bain down into the man's chest, knocking him to the ground. He screamed in outrage. She drew the blade back out and with a great twirl she brought the blade around in a lethal strike and took off the man's head.

What looked like inky black smoke began to pour forth from the headless corpse's neck and it attempted to solidify into a large Hylian shape, but the bright, tangible light around it wouldn't allow it. Malon struck with the Master Sword at the inky darkness again and again, thrusting and slicing until it finally dissipated completely. The final remnants of the darkness were consumed by the light, and then all the shadows fled the chamber, and only the light remained.

Gaepora slowly lowered his arms, and allowed the natural sunlight of the new dawn, which was breaking through the stained glass above, to fill the chamber with its multicolored light. Malona, looking at the headless body of the decapitated man, and the empty, silent chamber around her, said in a whisper, "It's over." And then she lowered her sword and shield, and the tears began again in earnest.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Her majesty, Queen Zelda, the thirty second of that name, proclaimed a thirty day period of mourning for all those who lost their lives in the national tragedy which occurred over those few days in early winter that year. Public and private services were held for all the members of parliament, and those who just happened to be caught in the building at the wrong time. A royal state funeral and memorial service was held for all the members of the former monarch, King Talon's, family. This was followed a week later by a similar service for the fallen Prime Minister, whom her majesty insisted on honoring.

"We honor the man he was." She proclaimed at the service. "The man who served the people of this United Kingdom, and her king, with honor, integrity, and wisdom. We can't allow the darkness that took him to make us forget that this good man was also its victim."

The enactment of martial law was recommended by the R.H.M.G. general staff after the events in the Parliament Building, but her majesty spoke against it, and the matter was dropped. The people of Hyrule weren't the enemy, and she refused to treat them like they were. They needed time to heal. The R.H.M.G. would serve in the same peace time capacity they always had. Her wisdom proved correct, and the people responded with growing respect and appreciation for their new queen.

After the end of the thirty days, new elections were called, and each of the proposed candidates ran an unusually clean campaign to honor their fallen predecessors. Her majesty remained appropriately impartial to all of them.

She sat, dressed in a silver, white, and pink dress, a thin silver and gold Triforce diadem placed firmly on her head, befitting her title as monarch at an antique Deku wood desk in an ancient office space used by Talon, Daphnes, and countless monarchs past which overlooked the palace gardens. Her mother had often talked about the gardens as being her favorite place in the entire complex. She couldn't look down at them through the window however without thinking of her mother, and wondering where she was now and what she was doing.

Instead, she was concentrating on the latest polls which had been taken by a news channel local to Ordonville. As queen, she had no vote, and was required to be impartial. But as Malo's friend, she hoped his brother, also a good man, won the seat in parliament he was running for. So far, he was ahead by three percentage points against his opponent. Still within the margin of error, but a good showing nonetheless.

There came a knock at her office door. It was one she had been expecting, but not happily.

"Enter." She called out.

The carved wooden door opened, and Gaepora came in quietly, closing the door gently behind him. He was dressed in a red suit blazer and trousers with a white shirt and blue tie. It was the first time she had seen her brother in civilian clothes in a very long time.

"Your majesty." He addressed his little sister with the proper amount of formal respect.

"General." She returned just as formally, folding her hands in front of her, expecting him to continue.

Gaepora winced at the use of his title. Of course she knew his decision, and she wasn't going to make it easy for him either. "Have your boys settled in well here at the Palace?" He asked. "And your new grandson?"

"They're still getting used to the big city. As are we all." She returned. "I'm afraid you can take the folks out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the folks. It will take time for all of us."

Gaepora smiled. "Take some time to walk around Old Castle Town with them." He said. "There's a tea house Gilli, the girls and I like to frequent near the central fountain when we go."

"We will, when we can." She said sadly, knowing that such moments were going to be few and far between from here on in.

There was an awkward silence, and then Gaepora pulled a white envelope out of his jacket pocket and placed it on her desk.

"So you've decided then?" She asked.

"Yes. It's what's best for everyone I think. Especially for Hyrule. Gilli and I talked it over as you asked during the days of mourning. She took her dad's death pretty hard, and she doesn't want to stay in Castleton any more. Besides, with you and your family here, someone will need to look after mom and dad's old place as well as yours." Gaepora told her.

"You hate farming." She said bluntly. "You couldn't wait to run as far and as fast from Ordonville as you could when you graduated from High School. We always had to practically kidnap you to bring you home for holidays with mom and dad. What changed?"

He held up the back of his left hand where the bright golden Triforce mark gleemed from the top of the tattooed pyramid. "This did." He said. "With great power comes great responsibility. I know what I'm capable of, Malona, and as long as I remain in a position of authority, I'll always be under the temptation to use it telling myself it's for the 'greater good.' I'm not that strong. I never understood before why mom gave up the throne, or why the Three took away her powers when she used them. I never understood it until now."

"But what if we need that power? What if Hyrule needs Wisdom, Courage, and Power to work together again side by side?" She argued.

"Then you'll know where to find me." He said. "I'll come when called."

"I could refuse your resignation." She challenged. "I could order you to stay."

"But you won't." He countered.

"Why wouldn't I?" She asked.

"Because you know I'm right." He told her. "That triangle sitting on your hand even now is convincing you of the wisdom of this decision. You just don't want to admit it."

Her eyes lowered to the envelope on her desk as she struggled with having to admit that her older brother was right. She took it and opened it, pulling out the piece of paper and unfolding it. She scanned down the page, reading it quickly. Folding it back up, she placed it slowly on her desk.

"I will accept this on one condition, General." She told him.

"And what is that, your majesty?" He asked, confused.

"That you and your family return here every year to celebrate the holidays with us. Especially the birthdays. Are we agreed?" She intoned with a smile.

"I think we can agree to those terms, your majesty." He smiled back.

"And the R.F.P.S. will resume their posting on mom and dad's property." She added. "For my own peace of mind."

His expression looked more uncomfortable with that, but he nodded his head, "As you wish, your majesty."

"And you will never address me as 'your majesty' ever again." She ordered in a dangerous tone of voice.

"Now that I cannot do, your majesty. You've earned that title." He said in defiance.

"Fine." She conceded, her eyes misting over. "I will miss you again, big brother. It was good having the three of us all together like we used to be."

"Yes, it was." He said. "Well, I'd best be going. We're leaving for Ordonville this afternoon, after the family and I have tea in Old Castle Town one more time."

"Have you already told Daphnes good-bye?" She asked.

"He was the first one I told." He answered. "He was, after all, my Commanding Officer." That conversation had been hard enough, but eventually Daphnes understood his position. Nothing would be the same again for any of them.

Daniel Jackson stood in the great entry hall of the Temple of Time, contemplating the ancient Hylian stargate in front of him that had started all of this. He knew he couldn't use it to return to his own reality this time, as there was no Stargate left on Earth to receive him. No, he would have to use the linking book which sat on a shelf in the Temple's library in order to do that.

He had stayed away from the new queen and heroes of Hyrule. They wouldn't know him, and there was no reason for him to introduce himself this time. He had however taken the time to see off a certain four foot mouse as the same mouse used his keyblade to unlock the doorway back to his own home. Strange as it sounded, it was good to see Mickey again. He was a familiar, friendly face from the past; one of the very few that had somehow survived.

"You have an interesting way of practicing non-interference, Daniel Jackson." Came the familiar voice of an ascended woman. "Or rather, I should say you can't seem to just let mortals figure things out for themselves, can you?"

"I can. And I do, most of the time, when they and their worlds aren't in danger of total destruction." He returned, smiling somewhat impishly.

He turned around to face three attractive, Hylian women, each of them with the appearance of being somewhere in the prime of their lives. The one who spoke to him had blond hair with bluish highlights and wore a light blue summer dress in bare feet. Her companions wore similar things, one with flame red hair, and the other green.

The woman in blue gave a half smile herself. "You remind me of my daughter, Daniel Jackson." She told him. Then she smiled more broadly and said, "And I'm glad of that. We all are." She said, gesturing to her companions.

"So, does that mean I get to stay ascended?" He asked.

"For now." The one in red returned a little playfully. "What good is having power if it can't be used wisely and with courage in a just cause?" She asked. "Your actions tell us you understand that better than most, even among those like us, Daniel Jackson."

"Thank you." He said, taking it as it was meant. "So, are you here to see me off?" He asked. He had been wondering when he would be getting the visit that rescinded their good graces in allowing him to stay. His only real surprise at this was that it had taken so long.

"If that is what you wish." Came another voice, so very similar to the one of the woman dressed in blue.

But this came from a very familiar looking younger woman with long, light blond hair, dressed all in white, radiant light emanating from every part of her form. At her side stood a younger Hylian man dressed in a simple green tunic and white trousers with brown riding boots. And then another pair appeared behind them, a Hylian man with flame colored hair he wore in a thick braid, and a matching beard in a red robe who looked strikingly like the man in green, and a tall, muscular warrior woman with silver white hair dressed also in red robes marked with the symbol of the eye of time.

"Is that what you wish, Daniel?" The younger man in green asked his old friend.

"Are you saying I have a choice?" He asked, truly surprised.

"Everyone had a choice, Daniel. That's why we fight so hard to protect their freedom to make those choices. What hypocrites would we be if we didn't allow you one?" The woman in blue asked him.

"But don't I interfere too much?" He asked, a boyish grin on his face.

"Of all those present here in this great chamber, you alone remain unknown to all those now mortal in this world." The woman in red told him. "You know our task, Daniel. Stabilizing this world's balance between beliefs and realities is daunting. And our time, eternal though it may be, is consumed by it. But if we had been able to pay just a little more attention, if we had just a little more help in our task, this whole situation might have been avoided, and the lives of those mortals, short though they would have been, could have been spared. We would ask you to consider this."

"So, you really want me to stay?" He asked, not sure if he was hearing right. "But what about my own reality?"

"You have said it yourself many times, my friend," the man in green said, "the Others there are too detached, and place too many restrictions. And that stability of that world is able to maintain itself well enough. What is there for you to return to or accomplish there?" He asked.

Daniel considered it. It was true, all of his real friends back home had been dead for many, many years, and one didn't really have friends or family among the ascended in the universe where Earth resided. He had been alone for a long time, and for the first time he realized what he had been missing all that time.

"Maybe I could stay and help out for a while." He finally decided.

Daphnes sat alone in the royal chapel in Hyrule Palace. He had never before set foot in the place, covered over as it was with images from his parents' ancient past. Sunlight streamed in through the stained glass, casting an otherworldly light across the small sacred space.

This was the place where his mother and father had been married, but he had never wanted to see it before now. It had been yet another reminded of the impossible standard he had been born into before. But now, as he looked at all the icons and imagery, he realized it was a memorial of how extraordinary his parents had really been.

He had realized, after the battle in the Parliament Building, that he had never gotten to say good-bye to his parents. His last words with his mother hadn't been what he hoped they might have been, and he never got to say anything to his father. The last time he had actually spoken with him had been almost a year ago at their last holiday get together, and those words were tense.

"Dad, I..." He started to speak. "I don't know if you can hear me. I don't really know how it works now." He managed to say. Then after a pause, he said, "I wanted to say... I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry about all of our arguments. I'm sorry about all of the times I compared your stories with horse feces. I'm sorry about running off to join the military as soon as I could just to get away from you. I was scared, Dad. Your oldest son was, and still is, a coward. I was ashamed of it then, and I'm still ashamed of it now. And somehow it didn't matter how far I tried to run, because it all caught up with me anyways. I know I can't be the Hero you were all those times before. But I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to be the Hero Hyrule needs. I love you, Dad." He couldn't say any more after that as his own eyes misted over.

"And I love you, son." Came his father's voice, so much like his own. It startled him and his eyes shot immediately in the direction of the sound.

There, standing in the small aisle between the wooden pews was his father, wearing the same green tunic, chainmail, long green hat, gauntlets and all the other accoutrements befitting the Hero of legend. "I always have. I know what kind of man you are, and what kind of Hero you've become, Daphnes. The Triforce of Courage chose correctly, son. You are no coward. Hyrule couldn't have been left in better hands."

Daphnes couldn't speak, but he got up from where he sat in the cushioned wooden pews and went to stand in front of his father's shining form. Not knowing what else to do, he threw his arms around him and held him tightly. The figure in green returned the embrace.

"I miss you, Dad." He said to him. "I miss you a lot."

"I'll always be watching over you, son." His father returned. "I'll always be near." He then let go of his son, and stepped back. "I have to go now. And you still have a job to do, Hero of Hyrule."

Daphnes nodded slowly. "Good-bye, Dad." He said as the figure transformed into a stream of light and energy, and then was gone.

He stood there for a few minutes, processing everything which had just happened. He then nodded, and turned towards the statues of the Princess and the Hero towards the front of the chapel, and traced three triangles around his head and shoulders, and then drew the sword which hung at the back of his R.H.M.G. uniform and, dropping to one knee, planted the tip of the sword in the floor bowing his head before the image of his mother.

When he spoke to his mother, his voice was serious and determined. "You don't need to worry, anymore, Mom. You and Dad can finally rest. Hyrule is our responsibility now. The darkness will never take this world. I swear it."

The End


End file.
